These smart glasses can decode your feelings
When you think of smart glasses, you probably think of how technology augments or analyzes what you look at through them. But what if smart glasses watch you?
The story: Brighton, UK startup Emteq Labs launched Sense, its emotion-sensing smart glasses.
- Paired with Emteq’s software, the glasses’ sensors, placed along the rim, can detect minute differences in facial expressions with up to 93% accuracy.
Tech specs for smart specs: In building a product that lays somewhere between a pair of designer glasses and an AR headset, Emteq has had to be very intentional about the look, feel, and function of their product.
- AR headsets are heavy, largely because of their battery packs. The Sense glasses weigh in at 62 grams, slightly heavier than Meta’s own Ray-Ban smart glasses.
- To keep the weight low, the Sense glasses use optical sensors instead of cameras, which require more battery power. These sensors, inspired by the vision of the common fly, work by detecting motion vectors when points on the face move.
- The Sense glasses capture data up to 6000 times per second, looking for facial motion especially around the eye, where motion related to emotional shifts are especially present.
The health angle: Why would we want to monitor our own feelings with a pair of smart glasses?
- In monitoring involuntary facial muscle activation, the glasses aim to detect and interpret emotional shifts users may be suppressing or even unaware of. This will help users—and perhaps clinicians—track mood and mental health in a new quantifiable way.
- The glasses may also eventually be used to track food intake, which reminds us of the calorie-counting algorithm we covered earlier this year.
- Overall, the team is excited to eventually see this technology spawn a range of more advanced, niche tools. For instance, one potential opportunity they’d eventually like to look at is developing a tool for facial paralysis.
Another set of smart glasses?: After the spectacular failure of the Google Glass smart glasses, consumers and tech wonks alike have been bearish on this class of wearables.
- But now, with new health applications for these products, the tide appears to be turning. We discussed why this may be the case when we covered EchoSpeech, smart glasses for detecting silent speech.
- Emteq sees health-focused smart glasses as riding on the wave of health-focused wearable popularity. While many common wearables—from smart watches to rings—focus on sleep and exercise, this new class of personal wearables focuses on diet and mood tracking as “the next pillar of health.”
- Emteq faces competition from Big Tech players like Meta and Snap, which have also unveiled their entries into the smart glasses arena.
- However, these big competitors’ products are still in development. Meanwhile, Emteq, led by new CEO Steen Strand who once headed Snap’s AR eyewear division, aims to have the Sense glasses available to commercial partners by December.