Audio glasses

Audio glasses are eyewear with speakers and microphones built into the frame, so that the glasses also work as wireless headphones and a hands-free headset, without a display. They connect to a smartphone over Bluetooth for music, calls and voice-assistant access. When TechCrunch reported Amazon's first Echo Frames in 2019, it summarised the product type in one line: "there's no camera and no display, just microphones and a speaker". Most models use open-ear speakers in the temples, which aim sound at the ears while leaving the ear canal uncovered, so the wearer still hears the surroundings.

Audio glasses are one of the simpler forms of smart glasses. Well-known examples include Bose Frames (2018), Amazon Echo Frames (2019), the Razer Anzu (2021), Anker's Soundcore Frames (2021) and Ray-Ban Meta Audio (2026), which Meta calls its "first-ever audio glasses". Their link to augmented reality is through sound rather than sight. Bose sold its Frames as carrying "the world's first audio augmented reality platform", which used a head-motion sensor in the glasses and the phone's GPS to add audio tied to the wearer's location and facing direction. Researchers have used the same hardware to study acoustically transparent audio and audio AR.

Reviewed 15 October 2026. Every cited source reopened: Bose, Amazon, Meta and EssilorLuxottica product facts, prices, dates and quotes, the Oakley Thump, Huawei, Razer and Soundcore details, and the McGill (CHI 2020), Nagele (2021) and Albera (2026) study findings. About review dates.

Definition and scope

The defining features are audio output, microphones and the absence of a display. Bose's 2018 announcement of Frames describes a speaker set into each arm, "an ultra-small microphone and multi-function button" on the right temple, and no change to what the wearer sees; the platform added "a layer of audio" instead. Amazon's Echo Frames put the speakers in the temples, where "open-ear audio directs sound toward your ears", and use the microphones for the Alexa voice assistant and phone calls.

Cameras mark the main boundary with neighbouring product types. Ray-Ban Stories (2021) and the later Ray-Ban Meta glasses have open-ear speakers as well as cameras, and Meta now markets its Ray-Ban Meta line as AI glasses. Meta's 2026 Ray-Ban Meta Audio drops the camera entirely. Engadget reported that the company would "ditch cameras entirely to focus on audio features and AI", and Meta itself described the model as its "first-ever audio glasses". Glasses with a see-through display, such as Google Glass, belong to the display categories of smart glasses even when they also produce sound.

A third group puts the same parts to medical use. EssilorLuxottica's Nuance Audio glasses carry directional microphones and hidden speakers in the frame and are sold as over-the-counter hearing aids, with the ears left open.

How they work

The speakers are small drivers mounted in or under the temples and pointed back toward the ear canal. Bose called the first Frames' speaker "a miniscule, wafer-thin acoustic package" set into the interior of each arm instead of an earbud or attached component. Its 2020 models used larger drivers: a 22 mm full-range driver in each temple of the sport-oriented Frames Tempo, and two 16 mm speakers in the Tenor and Soprano. Anker's Soundcore Frames use two drivers per arm, one in front of the ear and one behind it, four in total, in a layout Anker calls OpenSurround. The open-ear principle behind these designs, and its acoustics, are covered in Open-ear audio.

Microphones in the frame pick up the wearer's voice for calls and voice commands. SlashGear reported that the temples of the glasses Huawei announced with Gentle Monster in 2019 held dual microphones that use beamforming for phone calls, alongside stereo speakers, an antenna, a battery and a chipset. Controls are usually a button or touch surface on a temple. Echo Frames, for example, turn their microphones off with a double press of the action button and show a red light while muted.

Because the electronics sit in the temples, the lenses can usually be changed. Echo Frames ship with non-corrective lenses and are compatible with most prescription lenses. The Razer Anzu shipped with a clear lens set that blocks 35% of blue light and a polarized sunglass set that blocks 99% of UVA and UVB. Soundcore Frames go further, with a quick-release system that swaps the whole front frame between ten styles.

Some models add motion sensors. The first Bose Frames had a 9-axis head motion sensor that, together with the phone's GPS, told apps where the wearer was and which way they were facing. This allowed head-tracked spatial audio in which sounds stay fixed in the world as the head turns.

History

Music playback built into sunglasses predates the open-ear designs. In 2004 Oakley introduced Thump, which it called "digital audio eyewear": an MP3 player with 128 MB or 256 MB of flash memory built into the frame, with speakers on pivoting booms that the wearer positioned at the ears. It went on sale in the United States for the December 2004 holiday season at US$395 (128 MB) and US$495 (256 MB, with polarized lenses).

Bose announced Frames, with speakers hidden in the temples and a Bluetooth link to a phone, on 4 December 2018. It priced them at US$199, with US availability from January 2019, and called Frames "the first commercial product embedded with the Bose audio augmented reality platform". Huawei and Gentle Monster announced their glasses at the end of Huawei's P30 event on 26 March 2019. Amazon followed in September 2019 with Echo Frames, the first product in its invitation-only Day 1 Editions program, at US$179.99.

Date	Product	Maker	Notes
2004	Thump	Oakley	MP3 player in the frame, speakers on adjustable booms; US$395 or US$495
December 2018	Bose Frames (Alto, Rondo)	Bose	US$199; 45 g; up to 3.5 hours of playback; Bose AR head motion sensor
March 2019	Huawei x Gentle Monster eyewear	Huawei, Gentle Monster	Announced with no camera; dual beamforming microphones and stereo speakers
September 2019	Amazon Echo Frames (Day 1 Edition)	Amazon	Invitation only; US$179.99
September 2020	Bose Frames Tempo, Tenor and Soprano	Bose	US$249 each; Tempo up to 8 hours, Tenor and Soprano 5.5 hours
November 2020	Echo Frames (2nd generation)	Amazon	Open to all buyers; US$249.99; shipping from 10 December 2020
March 2021	Anzu	Razer	About US$200; interchangeable blue-light and polarized lenses; IPX4
October 2021	Soundcore Frames	Anker	US$199; four drivers; swappable front frames; launch set for mid-November
September 2023	Echo Frames (3rd generation) and Carrera Smart Glasses	Amazon, Carrera	From US$269.99 and US$389.99; up to six hours of continuous playback
February 2025	Nuance Audio	EssilorLuxottica	FDA clearance announced for the over-the-counter hearing aid glasses
September 2026	Ray-Ban Meta Audio	Meta, EssilorLuxottica	No camera; 43 g; from US$349; ship date given as 13 October 2026

Bose expanded the line in September 2020 with the Tempo for sport and the Tenor and Soprano for everyday wear. Its audio AR effort did not last. In June 2020 TechCrunch reported that Bose was ending its Bose AR platform and winding down support for third-party developers; a spokesperson said "Bose AR didn't become what we envisioned". In December 2023 Bose confirmed that it was ending sales of Frames altogether. The French site Clubic attributed the decision to modest sales and quoted Bose telling Digital Trends that Frames would no longer be available by the end of that year.

Amazon redesigned the speakers for its third-generation Echo Frames in 2023. It said a new custom driver gives "three times the bass" of the previous generation and that the open-ear design limits what people nearby can hear. On 23 September 2026 Meta announced Ray-Ban Meta Audio at Meta Connect, with pre-orders opening that day and a ship date of 13 October. The company said that audio "has been our most popular feature since day one" of its glasses. TechCrunch linked the camera-free design to criticism of AI glasses being used for covert recording, and reported Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg as saying that Meta concluded it could build a new category of glasses around audio.

Applications in AR

Audio augmented reality

Bose AR, the audio AR platform built into Frames, did not change what the wearer saw. Instead, apps used the glasses' head motion sensor and the phone's GPS to add an audio layer tied to the wearer's location and the direction they were facing. In February 2020 Microsoft added Bose Frames support to Soundscape, its free iOS navigation app for blind and low-vision people, which used the glasses' nine-axis sensor to tell which way the wearer's face was pointing; Microsoft said users wearing the Frames felt "significantly more aware of their surroundings".

Research

Audio glasses are an example of passive acoustic transparency, where the ear stays open enough to hear real and virtual sounds together. McGill, Brewster, McGookin and Wilson (CHI 2020) wrote that passive acoustically transparent headwear typically uses directional speakers integrated into glasses frames, citing Bose Frames, Amazon Echo Frames and Vue. In a within-subjects study with 15 participants, indoors and on a roughly 400 m outdoor walk, they compared head-tracked Bose Frames with Bose's noise-cancelling NC700 headphones across podcast, drama, audio tour and ambient content. Ten participants said the Frames made some content seem more real. Just under half of participants felt that the noise-cancelling headphones compromised their safety, and the experimenter had to step in a handful of times during the noise-cancelling conditions to keep participants safe. A repeated concern was that bystanders could overhear the Frames' directional audio: participants mentioned disturbing others on public transport, conversations or private messages being overheard, and other people hearing sensitive media.

Nagele and colleagues at Queen Mary University of London and BBC R&D built a participatory theatre piece, Please Confirm you are not a Robot, on Bose Frames, using nods, head shakes and taps on the frame arm as input. They chose the glasses for their acoustic transparency, head tracking and interaction options, and because they leave the ears uncovered and are less bulky than other head-tracked headphones, but noted that the head tracking had a latency of around 200 ms, against an optimum of about 60 ms for audio localization. In their June 2019 study with 16 participants, 11 said it was unclear where sounds came from, and some said sounds "jumped somewhere else" or "were moving", which the authors attributed to that latency.

Hearing assistance

The same layout of frame microphones and temple speakers is used for hearing amplification. In February 2025 EssilorLuxottica announced FDA clearance for Nuance Audio, over-the-counter hearing aid glasses, together with CE marking under the EU Medical Devices Regulation; Optometry Times reported that the Nuance Audio software was "the first Software as Medical Device (SaMD) to received FDA clearance in the US". The glasses are aimed at people with mild to moderate hearing loss. A 2026 study in Acta Otorhinolaryngologica Italica describes the glasses as delivering air-conduction amplification without in-ear components. In 32 adults (mean age 74) with symmetric, age-related mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss it found mean threshold gains of 10 to 11 dB HL at 4000 and 6000 Hz (smaller gains at lower frequencies), and speech reception threshold improvements of 7 dB at 50% intelligibility and 6 dB at 100%.

At Meta Connect 2026, Meta announced hearing enhancement, which it describes as "FDA-cleared software that helps adults with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss hear better". Meta said it would launch in the US later in 2026 as a US$149.99 add-on for supported AI glasses.

Limitations

Sound leakage is the main drawback of open speakers in a glasses frame. Bose described Frames audio as meant for "the user, and no one else", but in Engadget's review of the Razer Anzu, people about six feet away could hear the audio once the volume went above 50 percent. Participants in the CHI 2020 study raised the same concern about the Bose Frames. Manufacturers have responded in software and hardware: Soundcore Frames have a private listening mode aimed at sound leaking from the stems, and Amazon said the 2023 Echo Frames redesign limits what people nearby can hear.

Small drivers also limit bass. Engadget's reviewer found that on the Anzu "music sounds hollow and lacks bass", although the glasses got quite loud. Rated battery life is a few hours: Bose rated the first Frames at up to 3.5 hours of playback, and Amazon rated its 2023 Echo Frames at up to six hours of continuous media playback. For spatial audio, head-tracking latency can make sounds seem to move, as the Bose Frames theatre study found.

See also

• Open-ear audio
• Smart glasses
• Bose Frames
• Amazon Echo Frames
• Ray-Ban Meta Audio
• HUAWEI Eyewear 2
• Solos AirGo 3
• 3D audio
• Head-related transfer function