A team of UK researchers is developing ‘hearing glasses’ that could dramatically improve how people with hearing loss experience sound by combining lip-reading technology, artificial intelligence and the power of cloud computing.

The project, led by Heriot-Watt University and involving researchers from the University of Edinburgh, Napier University and the University of Stirling, aims to help those with hearing loss by filtering out background noise in real time, even in loud environments.

The device uses a small camera built into glasses to track the speaker’s lip movements, while a smartphone app uses 5G to send both audio and visual data to a powerful cloud server.

There, artificial intelligence isolates the speaker’s voice from surrounding noise and sends the cleaned-up sound back to the listener’s hearing aid or headphones almost instantly.

Professor Mathini Sellathurai, who leads the project, said: “We’re not trying to reinvent hearing aids. We’re trying to give them superpowers.

“You simply point the camera or look at the person you want to hear.

“Even if two people are talking at once, the AI uses visual cues to extract the voice of the person you’re looking at.”

This approach, known as audio-visual speech enhancement, takes advantage of the close link between lip movements and speech.

While some noise-cancelling technologies already exist, they struggle with overlapping voices or complex background sounds—something this system aims to overcome.

A new approach to an old problem

More than 1.2 million adults in the UK have hearing loss severe enough to make ordinary conversation difficult, according to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People.

Hearing aids can help, but most are limited by size and processing power and often struggle in noisy places like cafés, stations or workplaces.

By shifting the heavy processing work to cloud servers—some as far away as Stockholm—the researchers can apply powerful deep-learning algorithms without overloading the small, wearable device.

“There’s a slight delay, since the sound travels to Sweden and back,” said Professor Sellathurai, “but with 5G, it’s fast enough to feel instant.”

The group is working on multiple fronts, from cloud AI to edge device AI, to achieve optimal results for sustainability.

From lab to life 

Still in the prototype stage, the team has already tested the technology with people who use hearing aids. Early results are promising.

“One of the most exciting parts is how general the technology could be,” said Sellathurai. “Yes, it’s aimed to support people who use hearing aids and who have severe visual impairments, but it could help anyone working in noisy places, from oil rigs to hospital wards.”

By 2026, the researchers hope to have a working version of the glasses. They’re also speaking to hearing aid manufacturers about future partnerships and hoping to reduce costs to make the devices more widely available.

“There are only a few big companies that make hearing aids, and they have limited support in noisy environments,” said Sellathurai. “We want to break that barrier and help more people, especially children and older adults, access affordable, AI-driven hearing support.”

The team has already hosted workshops for hearing aid users and continues to collect noise samples, from washing machines to traffic, to improve the system’s training.

They believe the cloud-based model could one day be public, allowing anyone with a compatible device to connect and benefit.

“We’re not trying to reinvent hearing aids,” Sellathurai added. “We’re trying to give them superpowers.”

The project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).