Legato's AI hearing glasses bet: make hearing aid adoption as normal as getting glasses

Legato was founded in late 2024 by Mehul Trivedi and Steve Romine, two Bose veterans with decades inside consumer audio and hearing care. Trivedi led Bose Frames and worked on Meta Ray-Bans while at EssilorLuxottica; Romine ran Bose's hearing-aids division and later became COO of hearing-care company Audicus. Their starting observation was an adoption failure: an estimated 50 million US adults live with hearing loss, yet only about 20% of those diagnosed ever seek treatment, and the blockers are cost, comfort and stigma — not technology.

Legato Frames hide hearing assistance in plain sight: the company's patented acoustic system, signal-processing stack and mechanical architecture fit inside the arms of normal-looking glasses. Rather than directional microphones that strain in noisy rooms, an AI system distinguishes background noise from voices and amplifies only conversation. An open-ear dual-speaker design directs sound at the wearer while cancelling leakage by 99% only a few inches away, so the wearer gets help without broadcasting it.

The company emerged from stealth in August 2026 with $12M from Neotribe Ventures, Listen and Village Global, four granted patents and more than twenty pending applications. Legato Frames are scheduled to launch in fall 2026 through the company's website and select eye-care providers, priced at a fraction of traditional hearing aids and potentially eligible for vision insurance when purchased through a clinic — the one care channel people already treat as routine.