The Future of Eyeglasses
Eyeglasses are one of the most important inventions for the majority of the population. As we advance our journey in technology there are some serious side effects. A good example was the rise in blue light glasses during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. With jobs and school moving online, the strain we put on our eyes leads to serious issues later down the road. Side effects like dry eyes and headaches were very common among students and employees who spent the majority of their day working from home.
There are many ideas that pop up when mentioning the future of glasses. Most of them stem from virtual reality and entertainment rather than focusing on the health of the eye. For example with the Google glasses, their main purpose was to provide information to the user with displays in their field of vision. While this idea is extremely intriguing and cool to think about, I would like to focus on better the health of the user’s eyes or any sense enhance their weakened sense, sight.
Introducing IGlass, a new vision for glasses. With the IGlasses, prescriptions can be replaced within the same hour of the examination. On top of that, there are commands and gestures to improve the sight of the wearers. For example, the user can tap the right side of the glasses twice to activate sun-shielding or if they are using a computer they can tap twice on the left to activate blue light protection. Some hand gesture features include a magnifying feature. Putting your hands in front of your lenses and pinching in or out can notify the glasses that the user wants to zoom in or out.
Having to wear glasses comes with a lot of maintenance and responsibilities, with the IGlass the frames do not have to be sent back and shipped within a month period. When you go in for an eye examination, the optometrists would conduct a test connected to software provided with their equipment. From there, the patient will give the glasses ID number to the doctor and the doctor will send the final results to the glasses OS within minutes the prescription should be up to date with the most recent test. All of this within the same doctor’s visit.
Along with the same-day new lenses, the IGlasses come with other features to help further protect the user’s eyes. For example, as stated previously there are hand gestures that can activate certain features. One of them being the magnifying feature. When the user puts their hand in front of the lens and pinches inwards with their first two fingers the glasses will zoom out. The same goes for pinching outwards, the lens will then zoom in. This comes in handy for those that have bifocal lenses.
Another key feature would be the eye protection shields installed within the lens that can be activated with sensors on the side of the IGlass. When the user taps on the right side of the IGlasses it will activate the sunglass protection. UV coated filters will lay on top of the normal lens allowing the users to not switch between sunglasses and reading/seeing glasses. When the user taps on the left side of the blue light filters will lay on top of the normal lens just like the sunglass ones. And when the user wants to go back to the normal lens they simply tap the middle of the glass frames (located on the bridge of the frames).
As previously mentioned these glasses are connected with a software/app. With this app, the user will have all the health information about the user wearing the glasses. The purpose of this app is to show metrics and display prescription details. The metrics include Astigmatism testing, Glaucoma testing, Presbyopia testing, and Signs of eye-straining. The IGlass conducts tests on the eyes throughout the day to see if there are any indications of serious issues. If there are any signs the app will notify you through a connected device. This allows the users to keep up with their eye health and seek help if anything serious comes up.
The app asks the user to create an account, this is to create a personalized diagnostic page that the user and the ophthalmologist can look at. Not only does it display different aspects of eye health it also notifies the user if the numbers being collected show any signs of worry. The warning will be sent to the doctor and the user to make sure that it will be taken care of.
Smaller features that also always come in handy are the coating of anti-fog and anti-finger smudge on the lenses. This will allows for easier maintenance and allow the user to wear face masks without the annoyance of foggy glasses. As this is the first iteration, not all features are added due to logistical reasons and implementation issues. But I ideally added features that are most common and useful.
The IGlasses will be the newest addition to the evolution of glasses. Our mission is to not only help people see but to also help them be aware of their eye health. Having the user in mind allows us to create a device that will truly help those that are hard of sight while also incorporating the technology of tomorrow.
