A new Silicon Valley startup is trying to create the world's first true smart contact lens by creating aScreen right in front of your eyeslays. The display can therefore improve the view of the world. The newly formed company, Mojo Vision, unveiled a very early prototype at CES last week. The team is now ready to talk about product development.
Smart contact lens in development
Mojo Vision initially hopes to develop a smart contact lens that will help the visually impaired by displaying enhanced overlays of the outside world. This innovation is also intended to sharpen or enlarge details to make them easier to see. However, this reality still seems to have a long way to go. The prototype shown at CES featured a green, monochrome display connected to a large battery. The new company still needs to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration to eventually ship to consumers, particularly for medical use cases.
The technology is built into a hard scleral lens that has a bulbous portion. The latter should be slightly above the surface of the eye when worn. Mojo Vision claims to have a 14000 ppi display (the iPhone 11 has a 326 ppi display for comparison), as well as an image sensor, a radio and a motion sensor. These are used to overlay and stabilize images.
While the team demonstrated on a lens that the smart contact lens contains all of these components, they did not demonstrate a fully functional device. The display technology appeared to work when placed close to the eye. An external battery and processor were required to make the whole thing work. The company says consumers would be required to disinfect their contact lenses every evening and that they would be charged via a proprietary induction system.
Technical innovation for the eyes
As part of the demo, Mojo Vision presented how a display over the eye can help a person see in the dark, especially if a person already has a visual impairment. The presentation relied on an edge detection algorithm to show where objects were placed in a room. It worked, but the lens was on a larger base and didn't work within the tiny form factor.
The ultimate goal is to make the smart contact lens a little more like what Google Glass should be. It is a screen where consumers can see useful and up-to-date information without pulling out the cell phone. With its much smaller size, the smart contact lens could bypass a large number of social hurdles. Google Glass was initially confronted with these. It's just that turning your technology into an object smaller than a euro cent is a far more difficult challenge.
The company says people will likely need to wear an additional accessory that provides the data connection and processor for the lens. The team also suggested that customersUse eye trackersto control what they see. The scope for people with visual impairments is unique and potentially useful. However, for a wider audience, a legitimate justification is required for candidates to want to wear the smart contact lens every day.
