These Smart Glasses May One Day Eliminate the Need for Bifocals
Sometimes the most useful tools are simple and low-tech. Glasses are a great example of an uncomplicated device that has helped people see better and do tasks like reading and driving for hundreds of years.
Now, this basic tool is getting a high-tech upgrade. According to TechRadar, a Finland-based startup is working on developing a pair of sophisticated eyeglasses that can autofocus in real time, providing seamless, crystal-clear vision for individuals whether they are looking at something close up or far away.
Adjustable Glasses
The self-focusing glasses, designed by startup IXI, aren’t the first adjustable lenses to appear on the market. Another company, Adlens, invented a similar product a little over a decade ago, the BBC reports. Their spectacles could be manually adjusted by the wearer.
Joshua Silver, Adlens’ founder and a former employee of the company, designed adjustable glasses that could be set to whatever prescription the wearer needed, on a one-time basis. He sold around 100,000 of these glasses in nearly two dozen countries.
A Significant Improvement
However, IXI’s glasses represent a significant improvement on early adjustable lens attempts. These glasses are designed to continually readjust over and over again in real time and may be able to do so automatically, depending on what object the wearer is looking at. The battery for the autofocus should be able to operate for two days, and can charge overnight. The company also hopes that its design will fit a variety of faces.
Niko Eiden, IXI’s CEO, tells the BBC that the glasses contain lenses made from liquid crystals. The crystals can shift positions, changing the angle at which light enters the glasses. The built-in eye-tracker allows the glasses to respond to whatever correction the wearer needs at a certain point in time. “These liquid crystals… we can rotate them with an electrical field,” Eiden explains. “It’s totally, freely tuneable.”
According to TechRadar, the lenses use light pulses to track the distance between the wearer and the object they are looking at. This information is then sent to the liquid crystal lenses, which automatically adjust to provide the right focus. Incredibly, the entire process takes only 0.2 seconds, which is nearly half the time it takes the average human eye to focus.
The Future of Vision
Bifocals, the usual fix for farsightedness, have different areas of the lens for far away and close up viewing. As a consequence, wearers need to tilt their head in order to see and focus on specific items, and they also experience a more limited range of vision.
IXI’s solution could eliminate the need for bifocals and provide people with a clear and full range of vision at various distances. The company still hasn’t brought its glasses to the market, with medical regulations strict when it comes to prescription-grade optics. Other questions include how to integrate a battery, while also ensuring that the frames aren’t heavy.
More field research is needed before these products can be used for tasks like driving or doing surgery, according to the BBC. However, Eiden shares that IXI’s glasses are designed with a backup solution just in case the high-tech solution goes awry. “One can always glance over the dynamic area,” he explains.
With their sleek and user-friendly design and fast and flexible focus, IXI’s glasses might soon help people around the world see more clearly and comfortably. The future of vision just got a little sharper.
