 It's only been a few months since Meta announced that it would open its smart glasses platform to third-party developers. But one startup at CES is already showing off how the glasses can help power an intriguing set of accessibility features.
Hapware has created Aleye, a haptic wristband that, when paired with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, can help people understand the facial expressions and other nonverbal cues of the people they are talking to. The company says the device could help people who are blind, low vision or neurodivergent unlock a type of communication that otherwise wouldn't be available.
Aleye is a somewhat chunky wristband that can vibrate in specific patterns on your wrist to correspond to the facial expressions and gestures of the person you're talking to. It uses the Meta Ray-Ban glasses's computer vision abilities to stream video of your conversation to the accompanying app, which uses an algorithm to detect facial expressions and gestures.
The bumps on the underside of the Aleye vibrate to form unique patterns.Karissa Bell for EngadgetUsers can customize which expressions and gestures they want to detect in the app, which also provides a way for people to learn to distinguish between the different patterns. Hapware CEO Jack Wa
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Though it's been just a few months since iOS 26 launched, we're already hearing rumors about the next-generation version of iOS, iOS 27. iOS 27 will be introduced at Apple's June WWDC 2026 event before it launches in September 2026.
