Startup Shows Off Smart Contact Lens Prototype With Tiny Display
The California-based Mojo Vision has been showing journalists prototypes of actual smart contact lenses, which have tiny microLED displays embedded inside.
By Michael Kan
We’ve heard about smart contact lenses before, but one Silicon Valley company has actually come up with a prototype, which it’s been showing off to the press.
On Thursday, the startup Mojo Vision announced it was building the “world’s first true smart contact lens,” which features a 0.018 inch-microLED display on the surface that you can wear directly over your eye.
Before the announcement, the company demoed the prototypes to journalists at CES. Among the devices was a contact lens that played a video of a cyclist alongside heart rate data, according to Mashable reporter Karissa Bell. “As AR (augmented reality) content goes, it was fairly rudimentary, but the fact that this was all happening via a contact lens that was only a bit thicker than the ones I wear every day was impressive,” she wrote.
The upcoming product, dubbed Mojo Lens, promises to pave the way for an “invisible computing” experience, ditching the need for a smartphone, keyboard and other clunky hardware from your hands, the company says. The current prototype is powered by a film-like battery embedded on the surface that can last for a day, according to Fast Company, which says you’ll be able to recharge it with an Airpods-like case.
When you wear the lens, the tiny microLED display is capable of beaming 70,000 pixels directly into your retina. Over time, the company wants to add other tiny components to the lenses, including a single-core ARM processor, eye-tracking sensors, and a wireless communication chip.
Although the prototype won’t become a commercial product anytime soon, Mojo Vision’s goal is to sell the smart contact lenses to both consumers and enterprise buyers. It’s currently working on a software application that leverages the lenses to help people with low vision, or visual impairment that can’t be corrected with glasses or eye surgery. The software application will be able to do this by highlighting blurry objects in the person’s view over the lenses. On the enterprise front, Mojo Vision wants the product to beam real-time information to workers on the job, negating the need to constantly reach for a phone or laptop.
The startup has so far raised over $108 million in funding, and its investors include HP Tech Ventures, Google’s Gradient Ventures and LG Electronics. In addition, Mojo Vision’s team is made up of former employees from Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and many other tech firms.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.
