AI software for smart glasses wins £1m prize for technology to help people with dementia | Dementia
AI software that can be integrated into smart glasses has won a £1 million prize for technology to help people with dementia.
Built into chunky black-rimmed frames with a camera, microphone and speakers, the technology – known as CrossSense – guides wearers through daily life by way of a chatty assistant called Wispy.
Not only can Wispy offer prompts and feedback during tasks – through verbal cues and text that float before the user’s eyes – but it can also ask questions, engage in light conversation, and facilitate memorization.
The software won the Longitude Dementia Prize, one of several awards designed and delivered by Challenge Works and supported by Nesta.
Funded by the Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK, the prize aimed to encourage the development of technologies to help people with dementia remain independent for longer. It is estimated that around 150 million people worldwide will suffer from dementia by 2050.
Szczepan Orlins, managing director of CrossSense Ltd, said the prize money would help market the company’s product. He said a smartphone version would be available at the end of this year and CrossSense-enabled smart glasses should be available in early 2027.
Orlins added that although CrossSense Ltd provided the AI software, the team worked with frameworks produced by various hardware companies. These can be fitted with corrective lenses and are hearing aid compatible.
“With this award, we will launch a pilot project with smart glasses in the last quarter. [of 2026] for four weeks in people, which would give us enough data to know that everything is ready,” Orlins said.
Orlins said information such as the level of care the wearer needs could be entered into an accompanying app, and Wispy used machine learning to adapt to users’ needs, including changes in their condition.
CrossSense technology is expected to cost around £50 per month per subscription, while smart glasses cost up to £1,000 – although they could get cheaper. The CrossSense-compatible smart glasses will initially be marketed directly to consumers and the aim is for them to eventually be available through the NHS.
Professor Julia Simner, from the University of Sussex, the team’s scientific lead, tested CrossSense on 23 pairs of people with dementia and their carers. The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that without the smart glasses, participants with dementia could only correctly name 46% of household items. With glasses, this figure was 82%.
“What is crucial is that the benefit persisted even after removing the glasses,” Simner said, adding that an hour after removing the glasses the figure was 78 percent.
Dr Foyzul Rahman, an expert in cognitive decline at Loughborough University who was not involved in the project, said the breakthrough CrossSense made was offering real-time prompts and feedback during tasks rather than just one-off reminders.
Rahman said larger, more carefully controlled studies or randomized trials were needed to test whether such devices provided significant benefits in daily life, while there were also ethical considerations over consent, given the technology will collect data about the user.
He also said the challenge with assistive technologies is whether people will actually use them. In particular, he noted that the battery life of smart glasses was only one hour, which meant that a portable power bank was necessary.
But for Carole Greig, 70, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s nearly three years ago and has tested the CrossSense-compatible glasses, the technology is exciting.
“For people who have this disease like mine and are cognitively impaired, it’s just an incredible thing,” she said. “It’s fantastic to be able to give us a little more independence, to be able to fend for ourselves and not be a burden. And not only that, it’s not only [not] to be a burden is to enjoy life.
