A pair of smart glasses that can read a menu aloud or call out the color of a shirt is now going home with legally blind veterans in Hernando County, free of charge.
Maia Sosa, CEO of the Hernando-based nonprofit Stella’s Presence, demonstrated the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses to the county’s Veterans Community Partners committee this month — voice-command eyewear that can describe what’s in front of a user, identify objects on a counter, or read printed text out loud. It’s not a local pilot project; it’s the Hernando piece of a national rollout. The glasses come through a partnership between the Blinded Veterans Association, Meta and TechSoup, aimed at eventually reaching all of the more than 130,000 legally blind veterans across the country who qualify. Stella’s Presence is the organization actually handling it on the ground here — fitting veterans for the glasses and walking them through the voice commands and navigation features one on one.
The same county effort that’s bringing in the glasses is also behind this year’s Veterans Stand Down and Resource Fair, set for Nov. 18 at Radiant Church — most people here still know the building by its old name, Crosspoint Church, at 2440 Anderson Snow Road in Spring Hill. The annual event is built for homeless and at-risk veterans specifically: free food, clothing, haircuts, showers, laundry, hygiene products, and on-site dental and health care, plus help connecting to longer-term housing services.
One honest gap: neither effort has its own page on the county’s website yet, so the Hernando-specific details here — the Nov. 18 date, the committee demonstration, Stella’s Presence’s role — trace back to the Hernando Sun’s reporting this month rather than a county press release. The national glasses program itself is independently documented by the Blinded Veterans Association, Meta and the other groups distributing the devices elsewhere in the country.
Anyone who wants to get ahead of the Nov. 18 date can call Crosspoint/Radiant Church directly at (352) 592-7188 to ask how the Stand Down signup works this year.
Photo: Ray-Ban Meta Gen 1 smart glasses, by CCadio, licensed CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.