Harrison Gross.
MIAMI—We’re little more than halfway through 2026, and Innovative Eyewear (NASDAQ: LUCY; LUCYW), developer and manufacturer of smart eyewear under the Lucyd, Lucyd Armor, Reebok, Eddie Bauer, and Nautica brands, has not wasted any time in making their mark. The company has posted double-digit increases for both year-end 2025 and the first two quarters of 2026, and recently announced two key deals in both Canada and the U.S. The company is launching a major expansion into the North American optical retail sector, and although smart safety glasses, specifically Innovative Eyewear’s ANSI-certified Lucyd Armor line, remain its primary segment driving two-thirds of its total sales, the company told VMAIL it is now aggressively pushing Lucyd smart eyewear into mainstream optical retail channels.
In an exclusive interview, VMAIL sat down with Harrison Gross, CEO and one of the founders of Innovative Eyewear, to catch up on the rapid-fire developments for the company as well as find out what’s coming around the corner.
“I think there are two overarching factors to our recent success,” Gross told VMAIL. “One is the success of our Lucyd Armor smart safety glasses. The second is the increase in awareness, in general, of smart eyewear among the glasses-wearing population. The awareness now is much higher than it was in previous years. And at the same time that has happened, the build quality of the products, the optical correctness of the products, has improved a lot, not just in our products, but the space in general.”
Off to a Strong Start
The company kicked off 2026 reporting strong year-end results through December 31, 2025, with net revenue of approximately $2.67 million, or an increase of $1.03 million (63 percent) from the prior-year period. This was followed by a solid Q1, with reported net revenue of $773,561, an increase of $319,060 (70 percent) compared with the prior-year period. This month, the company marked its 12th straight quarter of growth, reporting unaudited net sales for Q2, demonstrating an increase of approximately $0.99 million (71 percent) year over year. In all cases, growth continued to be led by the Lucyd Armor line, which launched in October 2024 and has continued to show up as a key driver for the company’s success.
Further, the Miami-based company has announced several key strategic and growth-oriented moves, including the news this month of a 345-store rollout with FYihealth optical stores that provides entry into Canada’s $9.3 billion eyewear market. The partnership centers on the 2026 rollout of Lucyd Armor into FYidoctors and Visique clinic locations, with initial product placement expected to commence in the third quarter of 2026, the company advised.
The company is also expanding into a major U.S. chain, having announced a 50-store test with a major, yet-to-be-named national retailer starting in September 2025. Additionally, a new partnership with VSP-accredited Encore Optical Laboratory is set to expand the company’s addressable smart-eyewear market by enhancing online prescription fulfillment and providing advanced lens options for Lucyd Armor.
History and Market Expansion
Innovative Eyewear’s journey began in 2019, when it was founded by what its website calls “three like-minded tech entrepreneurs committed to developing the global standard in smart eyewear.” The company’s initial funding came from crowdfunding and Tekcapital plc, a U.K. investment firm. In 2020, the company launched its Lucyd Loud 2020 sport audio sunglass beta and raised over $1 million from nearly 4,000 grassroots crowdfund investors, its website explained, and then introduced the Lucyd Lyte line, an optical-quality, AI- and audio-enabled smart frame, in January 2021.
Following its 2022 IPO, the company launched the Lucyd app, enabling voice interface for ChatGPT on its glasses, and licensed Nautica, Eddie Bauer, and Reebok for smart eyewear. Fashion-branded collections under Nautica and Eddie Bauer came in 2024, followed by the 2025 debut of its new sports line, Reebok Powered by Lucyd. Additionally, the company expanded its product range by introducing four new versions of Lucyd Armor smart safety glasses.
A Growing Presence
Regarding his company’s recent push to broaden its optical retail presence, Gross noted that while the global safety glasses market is about $4 billion to $5 billion, the U.S. optical market alone is valued at approximately $45 billion and represents a huge opportunity for expansion. He also stated that his company will soon be introducing a new entry into its optical line, the Lucyd Aero, which is slated to debut at Silmo Paris in October. The company first shared product news about Lucyd Aero during its Q2 preliminary earnings call this month.
“This is the most traditional eyewear that we’ve ever made,” said Gross. “We think it’s going to work the optical market a little bit more into having to adopt smart eyewear, because this product is going to be so competitive with traditional glasses. We think that this is a product that they kind of have to take on in the optical channel.”
Gross added that the company plans to continue to offer and develop smart eyewear for every major category of eyewear, including ready-to-wear sunglasses, optical eyeglasses, safety and sport. “We currently have products in all four of those segments,” he said. “We are going to be devoting a bit more resources to the safety glasses, just because the success of that program so far warrants it. For example, we are already working on a camera version of the safety glasses for next year, which is going to have some additional utilities on job sites.”
Gross noted that customer inquiries regarding smart glasses in retail optical shops represent a growing trend, prompting stores to move these products from back-room storage to the main showroom floors while practicing board management. Additionally, opticians are beginning to receive specialized training on this technology, which allows them to effectively pitch and sell the products to patients and customers.
“Our business is just taking off now because we’ve hit this critical mass awareness, where opticians now actually have people coming in asking for smart glasses,” he said. “So now it’s not all on them. Consumers actually do have some organic interest in these products, which has never been the case until maybe a year or two ago.
“I see the optical channel as essential to grow that side of the business because eyecare still happens at the optician,” he added. “That is where people get their eyes checked, that’s where they make sure they can see clearly. That’s where they try on all the frames and demo smart frames. So, an essential part of what we’re doing is having the ability for patients to try our glasses in these stores and get exposed to them by trusted, eyecare professionals.”
What’s Next?
Innovative Eyewear is entering the latter half of 2026 with strong momentum, planning to introduce several new product rollouts to the optical retail market this autumn, Gross said, adding that he aims to evaluate the landscape of the smart eyewear sector and gauge current consumer sentiment.
“In the next year we’ve got the launch of our new ultralight Aero collection (launching Oct. 13), which I think is going to be really groundbreaking for optical,” Gross said. “It’s an affordable, attractive smart frame that looks exactly like regular eyewear and is priced like regular eyewear so I think that we’ve got a big job on our hands to get that out to our partners and get it into as many shops as we can. And then we have our camera Armor (calling it Armor Pro), it’s going to be coming out the first half of next year, along with all those developer tools for companies.
“As we see the rollouts happen, the big box store rollouts here in the U.S. and then with the FYihealth doctors, I think we’re going to learn a lot about what it takes to bring smart eyewear to the national scale,” he concluded.
