Meta’s Connect 2026 event was packed with announcements, from the new Meta VR Glasses and Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses to Muse coming to AI glasses. However, one feature could make a real difference in people’s lives. Meta is turning its AI glasses into an FDA-cleared, over-the-counter hearing aid, and it could save you thousands of dollars.
Hearing enhancement is a software feature for adults 18 and older who feel they have mild to moderate hearing loss. According to Mark Zuckerberg, it turns your glasses into a hearing aid that can compensate for that loss.
Getting started is refreshingly simple. You don’t need to visit a clinic or get a prescription. Instead, you take a guided assessment using your glasses and the companion app, and the amplification gets tuned to your specific hearing needs. The whole setup takes just a few minutes at home.
Hearing enhancement will launch in the US later this year, starting with Meta Glasses before rolling out more widely. You can add it to supported glasses for $149.99, and it’s eligible for HSA and FSA reimbursement. You can also get it with a Meta One subscription.
As Zuckerberg pointed out, instead of spending thousands of dollars on a hearing aid, people can now get this for a fraction of the price. Meta is also giving every AI glasses owner more control over audio. A new audio balance feature lets you shift sound toward your left or right ear, while mono audio sends everything to a single side.
During the event, Meta shared the story of Lindsay Jones, a fashion designer who has been gradually losing her hearing, mostly in her left ear. In noisy rooms, she often misses every third or fourth word of a conversation.
For Lindsay, the feature is about more than work. She spoke about not wanting to miss her kids growing up and described using the glasses to hear her best friend tell a story, calling that level of connection “really moving.”
Zuckerberg called the feature “a really big deal,” and I have to agree. For anyone who has been putting off dealing with hearing loss, this could be the nudge they need.
The OnePlus Buds Clip are a new pair of open-ear earbuds built around a simple convenience. They join Sony’s LinkBuds Clip in the growing ear-cuff category, but either OnePlus bud can go on either ear.
Sensors recognize how the earbuds are being worn and route the audio channels accordingly. There’s no label to check before putting them on, and the feature also works when only one bud is used.
We buy fitness bands and activity trackers to keep tabs on our exercise, but it is easy to forget to start tracking or switch modes when moving between different activities. For Fitbit and Pixel Watch users, that could soon become a lot less annoying, as Google is rolling out a major upgrade to automatic activity tracking that can recognize more than 100 types of exercise, up from just 10 before.
Google first showed off the improved tracking earlier this month alongside the Fitbit Edge. It is now coming to Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, and Google claims the added context behind the system makes workout detection nearly twice as accurate while cutting missed activities by more than half. Fitbit Edge will support it too.