Show HN: Subvocal – Talk to your computer without making noise
733 points by aarushyadav 19 hours ago | 348 comments
tl;dr: Two Georgia Tech students (YC F26) built smart glasses that decode silently mouthed (or even closed-mouth) speech into text by emitting RF waves that pass through the face and get modulated by the tongue, lips, and soft palate. After abandoning EMG electrodes due to noise and usability issues, they trained foundation models on paid data collection to handle cross-user anatomical variation, achieving usable performance with just a 20-sentence calibration. Preorders are open for a 500-unit first batch, with shipping targeted for Q1 2027.
HN Discussion:
  • ↑Enthusiastic early adopters requesting hardware/fit considerations and preordering the product
  • ↑Sees major accessibility potential for deaf or speech-impaired users
  • •Curious about technical implementation details like on-device inference, offline capability, and noisy environment use
  • ~Raises privacy and enterprise security concerns about the technology
  • •Questions how this compares to existing silent-speech projects and alternatives