The Subvocal Company, a San Francisco startup, has opened preorders for glasses that turn silently mouthed words into text at more than 200 words a minute.
The startup unveiled the glasses on October 30, when co-founder and chief executive Aarush Yadav announced the product alongside its preorders.
How the glasses work
The glasses use radio frequency sensors to read tiny movements in the muscles used for speech. When a wearer silently mouths words, the sensors track how those movements change the reflected signals.
An AI model then turns those signals into text. The system uses no camera and does no lip reading from video, so it does not need a webcam or a view of the wearer’s face.
Subvocal says the glasses are built for messages, notes and conversations with AI assistants. The company names ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Slack and email among the places where the text can land.
What a preorder buys
Preorders are open in the United States at an early bird price of $499, compared with a regular price of $699. Buyers pay a refundable deposit of $199 now, with the remaining $300 due later.
The company estimates shipping will begin in the first quarter of 2027. Delivery is subject to approval from the Federal Communications Commission, and prescription lenses will cost extra.
The deposit stays refundable until the buyer makes the final payment. The company also warns that the glasses are still in development and that final specifications may change.
The company behind the glasses
The Subvocal Company was founded in 2026 by Aarush Yadav and Arnav Kumar, who serve as chief executive and chief technology officer. The startup is based in San Francisco and is part of Y Combinator‘s Fall 2026 batch.
The company has raised $1.3 million in pre-seed funding from Y Combinator and Afore Capital, alongside angel investors. The company says its prototypes have already reached text entry speeds above 200 words a minute.
Those speeds have not been independently verified, and accuracy is still improving as it trains larger models. “Our glasses give you the speed of speech without you making a sound or touching a keyboard,” said Aarush Yadav, co-founder and chief executive of The Subvocal Company.
What comes next
The first production batch is reserved for early buyers, with later runs to follow. The test for Subvocal will be whether silent dictation holds up outside controlled demos.
