An upcoming startup .lumen, presents a AI smart glasses for the blind at CES 2026. The AI glasses for the visually impaired could help them navigate independently indoors and outdoors. This Lumen glasses will guide them through their surroundings. Lumen’s first-generation device has secured 1,500 pre-orders, worth about $10M already and the production has ramped up. The startup .lumen is concurrently working on a second-generation model.
Lumen glasses at CES 2026
The .Lumen glasses look like a headset, similar to the ones that has VR and AR experiences. The smart glasses uses sensors and AI in a tech stack kind of similar to a self-driving car.
The difference is they do not project any visuals, but instead they give precise haptic feedback to the wearer’s forehead, like a subtle vibrations with audio from beamforming speakers, to discreetly guide them in the right direction, and away from obstacles.
AI glasses for the visually impaired
Cornel Amariei, who is the Founder and CEO and previously worked on AVs at Continental. He decided to start .lumen in 2020 to do something for blind and visually impaired people. Not only was he motivated to develop this technology but wanted to implement the learnings he had from developing ADAS technologies for cars.
According to him while the technology developed for cars uses pre-defined mapping and roads with clear boundaries, the approach will be different for pedestrians. “We need to understand the world in a semantic way,” he said. The company uses stereo vision and AI models to constantly figure out the wearers’ position and the ground, e.g. It ensures that the wearer not walk onto a lake just because it looks flat.
AI Glasses for Visually Impaired
Along with the other feature it uses an AI model that understands road segmentation to identify crosswalks and guide you through traffic. Wearer can use their voice to request guidance to specific places, including preset locations like ‘home’ or ‘work’, these smart glasses understand commands like “take me to my office,” and get you all the way up to your desk inside the right building, as .Lumen is working to support more intuitive usage.
Lumen Glasses Features
This glass have six cameras, two infrared laser projectors to nighttime, three inertial measurements, along with a GPS system that helps to coordinate and detect ground-level and overhead obstacles. .Lumen glasses can identify stairs, doors, bus stops, and even puddles and snow too. The device has sizeable forehead-mounted sensor and camera array in the front, and a large battery pack at the rear.
Lumen Glasses Price
Lumen price is around US$11,800 and one has to make reservations for it.
The device has been five years in the making and .Lumen is planning to make its glasses available for live demos at the upcoming CES trade show in Los Angeles, January 2026 giving opportunity to more users to give it a try.
The glasses as per the company are being used by more than 400 blind users around 40+ countries for testing in real-world.
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