Two entrepreneurs invent TranscribeGlass: a device that brings subtitles to your eyeglasses

STANFORD, Calif. – Recent master's graduates Tom Pritsky from Stanford and Madhav Lavakare from Yale recently launched their innovative startup: TranscribeGlass.

Bringing subtitles to the real world, TranscribeGlass is an assistive device designed through the passion to empower those who are deaf or hard of hearing. It mounts to any pair of eyeglasses and projects transcriptions during real-time conversations.

The two entrepreneurs designed the hardware to be affordable and lightweight, with beta prices starting at $55 and the final version estimated to be around $95.

Co-founder Tom Pritsky said he's had a hearing loss his whole life, leading him to take a deep interest in subtitles.

"While captions existed for movies, Netflix, YouTube – there was no really good solution for real world settings," explained Pritsky. "So actually, in undergrad, I would get companies to just ship me AR (augmented reality) headsets and I would put captions on them."

Five years later, Pritsky and Lavakare incorporated their company, TranscribeGlass.

Pritsky said he met Lavakare along his journey. Lavakare was already working on building a closed captioning solution when they met, so the two teamed up and created the lightweight, all-day wearable device that already has hundreds of beta users.

"Unlike alternatives, TranscribeGlass hardware is purpose-built for our users," wrote the company. "This optimization makes us the lightest captioning solution with all day battery, in a sleek wireless form factor."

subtitles for real life ⁉️🤯

at TranscribeGlass we’re developing wearable, real-time captions 💬

optimized for light weight and all-day battery

here’s founder Tom demonstrating our device in action! pic.twitter.com/6xudklc2Za

— TranscribeGlass (@TranscribeGlass) July 27, 2023

Pritsky said the first time he tried on the device was the first time he could see captions in his field of view, "and it was incredibly cool."

"There were a whole bunch of, you know, challenges that we were working to resolve – the mounting, the positioning," noted Pristky. "But... it was wearable. It was light enough, and that's really the first time I've ever felt that, because all the other devices that I had put captions onto were large, bulky AR headsets that just just wouldn't work for this use case at all. And that was really exciting to me."

When the company released a video of the device in-use earlier in the summer, they received millions of views on social media.

"It's been really encouraging and satisfying to see how much people resonate with the product," said Pritsky.

While there is no current release date for mass scale, Pritsky said they are expanding to a significantly larger beta scale by the end of next year.

"We're working really hard to bring it to market and allow everyone to see the conversation," said Pritsky.

For more information and/or to join the waitlist for a pre-order of the TranscribeGlass Beta, click here.