Cinema offering smart glasses for hard-of-hearing

Jane Ninnis from Hearing Loss Cornwall said the glasses were simple to use

A cinema in the South West has introduced glasses which aim to help customers with hearing problems.

White River Cinema in St Austell said the "WatchWord" technology would allow visitors to view subtitles through a pair of smart glasses.

The subtitles appear through the glasses as captions with a handheld controller allowing the viewer to change the size, position, colour, focal-length and brightness of the text.

Staff at the cinema said the glasses had been introduced to increase accessibility to film screenings.

Customers who want to use the glasses at the cinema, which is part of the WTW Cinemas group, have to arrange it with staff beforehand.

Cinema bosses said plans for a system to make the glasses readily available were being worked on along with a move to offer them at all their Cornish venues.

The glasses provide personalised subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers

White River manager Will Burt said the cinema usually offered two subtitled screenings a week, but the glasses would widen the options for hard-of-hearing people.

He said the glasses, worth about £1,000 each, had state of the art technology originally used for fighter pilots and were already proving popular.

"One man has been in a couple of times to try it and he has been deaf since he was seven," Mr Burt said.

"He says it's the first time he's felt really included and he can come here whenever he wants."

Jane Ninnis, a trustee at Hearing Loss Cornwall, said about one-in-five people have hearing loss and the glasses, which she said were easy to use, would be beneficial.

"With this, if you can just put some glasses on and watch a film with your family, you're getting the benefit of the subtitles and they're not irritated by it," she said.