Omdia said global AI-glasses shipments hit 4.2 million units in the first half of 2026, up 127% from a year earlier, though those totals do not show how often buyers use live captions or translation.
Omdia also counted 3.4 million Meta shipments, an 81.3% share. Counterpoint Research reported 263% year-over-year growth for its broader category, which combines display-less glasses and augmented-reality-and-AI models; 96% of those shipments were display-less. The differently defined estimates do not show demand for glasses that put captions before the wearer.
That distinction is visible in examples from a Nov. 10 Euronews report produced with CGTN. It profiled Australian Juanita Neville-Te Rito using smart glasses to communicate across languages and Liu Shanshan reading captions through RayNeo glasses. The report said Liu lost her hearing at age three; it offered individual experiences rather than a broader test of how well the features work.
RayNeo says its iO AI Glasses provide live captions and translation across 55 languages and 110 accents. Offline captions cover Chinese, English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese; online captions require an internet connection on the paired phone. RayNeo says surrounding noise, speech pace, accents and microphone pickup can affect offline caption recognition. Its translation guidance separately flags unclear speech, noise, accents and speaking speed.
RayNeo says it saves a transcript when a Live Captions session ends; users can review or share it, or request a summary. Omdia and Counterpoint identify privacy concerns among the industry's challenges.
Australia’s National Acoustic Laboratories said a May 2026 proof of concept displayed live captions in a user’s field of view. The lab said phone-based captions can draw a user’s gaze away from the person speaking; its exploratory project examined showing text in view.
