Electronic Glasses Give Sight to the Legally Blind
As someone who basically grew up in the eye doctor’s office and runs a high risk of losing the vision I and my doctors have fought so hard for, I’m constantly on the lookout for devices and adaptive technology created for the visually impaired. So when I found out that there are finally electronic glasses, I almost cried. They are a far cry from bionic eyes that we’ve all been waiting for since watching I, Robot in the early 2000's, but undeniably awesome.
What exactly are they?
Electronic glasses, like the one in the picture above from the company eSight, look similar to a small VR headset.
“Each houses a high-speed, high-definition camera that captures what the user is looking at. The device uses algorithms to enhance the video feed and displays the video through eSight’s OLED screens in front of the user’s eyes. Almost immediately, the cameras enhance the footage that beams across two screens, one in front of each eye. A 24-times zoom also helps out.” *1
The glasses are both Wifi and HDMI compatible so users can stream their favorite shows or watch informative YouTube videos, surf Google, and so much more! Users can also change the picture by altering the contrast, color and magnification. Depending on the model, electronic glasses last anywhere from 2 to 8 hours of constant use.
Here’s a video with more information:
Who exactly will these glasses benefit?
These glasses are being marketed for people with a multitude of visual impairments such as diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, detached retina, cataracts, uveitis, muscular distrophy, and about a dozen others.
Cost:
The cost for electronic glasses varies. The base price for one of eSight’s electronic glasses starts at $5,950 so they’re not exactly cheap, but insurance companies may cover some of the cost and several companies who create and sell the glasses will work with the visually impaired to find grants and funding to help afford their glasses.
Random facts about visual impairment:
It was reported in 2016 that a whopping 7.6 million people in the United States between the ages of 16 and 75 were living with a visual disability. **
Of those mentioned above from the age of 21 to 65, 847,000 reported getting less than a high school degree, 12. million reported graduating high school or getting their GED, 1.1 million went to some college or got an associates degree, and 598,000 reported getting a bachelor’s degree or higher. **
Why are these glasses so important?
There are so many reasons that these glasses should be made available to the general public! Although being visually impaired doesn’t keep people from living a relatively normal life, it can be incredibly difficult for people who go from having great or good sight to learn how to adapt to a life without the sense after relying so heavily on it for so long.
Glasses like these can help people in their transition of learning how to interact with their world in a new way. It could help people finish or go back to school so that they can get better jobs. A pair of these glasses can help a visually impaired parent see their child for the first time, or a child see their parents for the first time.
The future of electronic glasses:
Below is a video of some glasses being created for people with retinal problems and vision loss in various areas of their eyes:
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve watched too many science fiction movies, but I can imagine that soon the glasses will get smaller and smaller, and even start to look like regular glasses. I dream of the day that those of us with vision loss will be able to go in for a surgery where they implant a small computer in our head to bypass the “broken” parts of our eyes so we can go without contacts or glasses altogether.
Citations:
* found at https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/20/these-amazing-electronic-glasses-help-the-legally-blind-see.html
** found at https://nfb.org/resources/blindness-statistics
