Legato Frames: AI Hearing Glasses Go on Sale at $999
Legato, a hearing technology startup, has started selling its first product. Legato Frames are glasses with hearing assistance built into the arms, and they use AI to pick voices out of background noise. The company announced on Thursday that they are now available. Prices start at $999. The glasses are aimed at adults with hearing loss up to a moderate level.
The company says it wants to make hearing care easier to access by addressing three common reasons people avoid hearing aids: cost, comfort, and stigma. Placing the technology in a pair of glasses is its answer to all three.
How the glasses handle sound
Traditional hearing aids often depend on directional microphones. These focus on sound from one direction and can perform poorly in noisy places. Legato uses a different method. Its AI system separates voices from surrounding noise, then makes the voices louder and turns down the sounds the wearer does not want.
The frames use an open-ear design, so nothing sits inside the ear canal. According to Legato, the people nearby still cannot hear what the wearer hears. A dual-speaker system points sound toward the wearer and cancels the sound that leaks outward. The company says this cuts sound by 99% just a few inches from the ear.
Privacy is part of the pitch as well. Legato says all processing runs on the glasses themselves, and that there are no cameras and no recording.
Specs and availability
- Weight: 34 grams, including lenses
- Battery life: 10 to 12 hours
- Styles: three frame options
- Lenses: prescription lenses supported
- Connectivity: Bluetooth streaming for music and calls
Buyers can order Legato Frames from the startup's website or through selected eye care providers in the U.S. When bought through those providers, the glasses can be covered by vision insurance. In the U.S., vision insurance is a separate type of coverage that usually pays toward eye exams, glasses, and contact lenses.
The team and the money
The launch comes a few weeks after Legato came out of stealth with $12 million in funding. The backers are Neotribe Ventures, Listen, and Village Global.
Mehul Trivedi and Steve Romine founded the company in 2024. Both previously worked at Bose. There, Trivedi led the development of Bose Frames, the company's audio sunglasses, and Romine ran the hearing aids division. Trivedi then moved to EssilorLuxottica, the eyewear group, where he led smart eyewear projects and worked on the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses. Romine became COO of Audicus, a hearing care company. They later teamed up to work on products that combine hearing technology and smart eyewear.
Our Take
Legato is a good example of AI showing up in a product that is not sold as an AI product. The selling point is not a chatbot or an assistant. It is a narrow, practical task: making conversation easier to follow in a noisy room. The on-device processing claim matters here. Smart glasses with cameras have drawn privacy concerns, and Legato appears to be positioning itself as the opposite of that.
The founders' background suggests the company understands both sides of the problem, eyewear and hearing care. Whether the AI noise separation holds up in busy restaurants or crowded streets is still an open question, and independent reviews will be the real test. It is also worth watching whether vision insurance coverage helps bring the $999 price within reach for more people, and whether larger smart glasses makers move into hearing assistance themselves.