Google’s Smart Contact Lens Project
A taste of what’s lined up in the next generation of wearable and augmented reality tech
Today Google[x] revealed their next project— a smart contact lens that detects glucose levels from your tears. Basically, it’s an extremely small wireless chip and a miniaturized glucose sensor sandwiched between two layers of contact lens material. The lens measures and relays your glucose levels around-the-clock, making diabetes management a significantly easier task. Soon enough, diabetics can say goodbye to finger pricking.
So it’s not a contact lens version of Google Glass… yet.
Google is already testing working prototypes of their lens and has begun talks with the FDA. Project co-founders Brian Otis and Babak Parviz say their next step is to explore “integrating tiny LED lights that could light up to indicate glucose levels having crossed above or below certain thresholds.” Naturally, this technology is still in it’s infancy, but given the exponential rate at which technology is advancing, squeezing in an array of LEDs could happen sooner than we think.
Naturally, Google isn't the only one working on smart contact lenses. Researchers at UNIST and Samsung are working on their own smart lenses for glaucoma patients. So it’s not a contact lens version of Google Glass… yet. These project gives us a teaser of what’s lined up in the next generation of wearable and augmented reality tech— full-fledged immersion:
