Tal Bar-Or, founder and CEO of AI hearing glasses startup Altina, said big tech is making smart glasses the wrong way and mainstream adoption won’t be possible until the industry prioritizes design.
Smart glasses are coming of age. Meta’s Ray-Ban line shipped 6.5 million units in 2025. Google has teamed up with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster to confirm Android XR audio glasses for fall 2026. Amazon’s Echo Frames have been on the market for several years.
But walk down any street and you’ll hardly ever see anyone wearing these shoes.
Tal Bar-Or, founder and CEO of Altina, knows why. He worked on Echo Frames at Amazon before founding his own startup. He’s watched big tech pour resources into smart glasses, but each time they’ve missed the same basics.
“They are compromising style and fashion and violating privacy,” Bar-Or told UC Today. “I think it’s really only half a step better than what I saw.”
Design like glasses, not a gadget
Bar-Or’s argument is simple. Smart glasses must compete with regular glasses on aesthetic and practical terms before the technological layer becomes significant.
One overlooked issue is physical fitness. Traditional opticians offer thousands of frame styles to suit a variety of face shapes. Most smart glasses brands offer a small number of glasses.
“The nose in Europe is different from the nose in East Asia,” Bar-Or said. “If you put glasses made for Europeans on an East Asian face, they will just slip off.”
The Altina has no electronics in the front frame. This is an intentional choice that allows for a much greater variety of styles and sizes.
Hearing Enhancement as a Killer Use Case
Instead of chasing the “smartphone replacement” narrative, a vision that Bar-Or saw firsthand fail at Magic Leap, Altina is focusing on improving hearing. Beamforming microphone helps wearers focus on their voice in noisy environments.
“There must be a reason why they wear our glasses,” he said. Privacy concerns are already hindering camera-forward competitors, making non-camera approaches increasingly attractive.