Re:Show HN: Subvocal – Talk to your computer without making ...
by joshspankit on Monday November 02, 2026 @09:31PM
(#50347257)
Agreed.
Cloud processing can be tempting as the primary revenue stream, but it entirely cuts off those users who cannot send arbitrary PII over the internet (regardless of encryption promises).
It also invites the (especially now-LLM-empowered) enthusiasts to reverse engineer it.
Instead, consider selling the glasses with >20% profit, and give local users a cheaper subscription to something else (maybe the model updates?) so they can also help keep the company sustainable.
You can get both markets (ease of use and technical) by allowing it. Also i would bet that you gain almost no product security locking off local inference - the hardware is the hard bit. Once someone has your hardware in hand it will not take them long to reverse and build their own processing layer; you’ll need to fight those people on patents and product quality.
Heck for a v1 just allowing local sensor data would probably be enough for the tech enthusiasts. But please don’t lock this off from the get go - it makes the sale harder and I don’t think it gives you much in return.