Women Eye Contact Lens Goes Hi-Tech : Smart Contact Lens

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    Call it Eye-O-T if you like and you are not wrong. Indeed harnessing the resources of the eye constitute an Eye Of Things. Ladies world over have been using contact lenses for decades, but it is about to go SMART now. You probably have seen or used a Smart glass, but the idea of a Smart contact lens is out of this world.

    In  2014 Google filed patency for a smart contact lens which they hope to bring to the market in 2020. Google’s own is spectacular because it would measure glucose level in tears for timely management of diabetes and other sugar related diseases. Don’t worry, you don’t have to cry to produce tears as the eye always has tiny bits of it when you blink your eyes.

    Other uses of the Smart contact lens is for (1) direct digital imaging. In this case people with vision problems use the lens to see clearly as image is formed directly on the eye by the contact lens. (2) virtual reality will become seamless, as this eliminates the wearing of big goggles like welders. No one will know you are seeing another world, but this tech is not jollof rice, it’s tough!

    The Smart contact lens works by sending data every second to an App in the mobile phone of the wearer. It senses the blinking of eyes and generates electricity to power the electronics on it.

     

    Challenges

    For the case of medical testing and management of glucose level, doctors say the Tears does not have sufficient glucose level consistently for it to be used as a test source. Former CSO of J&J’s LifeScan John Smith said that efforts to measure blood sugar through saliva, sweat, and tears have failed for decades. He called the diabetes-assistive contacts lens, “faith-based science”; further, he says it cannot produce glucose readings and is prone to be impacted by external variables such as the surrounding environment, temperature and humidity. This has caused companies like Apple to enter into the contact lens race in order to beat the challenge.

    The other issue is convenience. A lens with electronics will indeed be uncomfortable, but two Korean scientist last week submitted patent for embedding electronics in contact lens without “feelings”.

    So much to be done before we finally see and use the first Smart contact lens. I guess ladies will fly with it, for they have been in the business for donkey years!