Coolest Thing This Week: Self-Focusing Glasses

This isn’t the first time we’ve reported on issues surrounding eye health.  There is now a whole new technological industry that has arisen to meet the needs of people with damaged eyesight. Enter one Israeli startup Deep Optics, the company that’s now set to revolutionize the multi-focal glasses market with technology that allows for lenses to refocus automatically. The Israeli startup has spent the last three years building lenses with a see-through liquid-crystal layer that can change its refractive index to constantly refocus.

The science behind this innovative venture certainly sounds impressive. Two optical sensors analyze the distance between the eyes and the object the person is trying to focus on. The information is then sent to an in-built processing unit that communicates with the crystal lens, and this in turn automatically adjusts the active prescription based on the person’s needs and the distance at which he/she is looking at. No more distortions or blind spots.

CEO Yariv Haddad claims that this technology will  not only benefit people with near sight issues more commonly called presbyopia, but also other industries such as the emerging world of virtual-reality, where it could be used in headsets to help the eyes focus more naturally on the 3D images. Thereby avoiding the nauseous feeling that is currently a persistent side effect with VR gaming.

We will have to wait another two years before the technology is fully implemented, but there’s no denying that Deep Optics and their dynamic focal glasses offer enormous potential.