How smart is your eyewear?
By Essilor Canada
Smart devices are part of our daily lives. Just how advanced is this technology? What kind of help can we expect from our eyewear?
More and more devices around us are now considered “smart.” Eyewear, too, has jumped on the bandwagon and become smart in turn. In 2012, Google was the first company to market smart eyewear with their Google Glass. Since then, several other companies have followed suit with their own models, and their own technology. Let’s take a look at what the new generation of smart glasses has in store for us.
When it comes to smart eyewear, the possibilities are almost endless. Some models let you take photos and videos; others act like a personal trainer, keeping track of your runs, monitoring your heart rate and guiding you through your workouts. The technology even monitors your brain waves to help you stay focused.
An American start up is planning to market smart glasses for blind people that connect them in real time to certified agents who can accurately describe what the wearer would see. Whether they are grocery shopping or walking on the street, the blind would be accompanied by virtual agents acting as visual interpreters for their daily tasks.
In Canada, the Toronto company eSight has been working for more than a decade to transform the lives of the blind. Their company’s mantra: vision loss should not define how the blind see the world. That's why they have created the world’s most advanced electronic glasses, which let the legally blind see the world as it is. A high-speed, high-definition camera built into the glasses captures everything the wearer is looking at. These images are then displayed on two ODEL screens in front of the wearer's eyes. The wearer can adjust the device to the optimal point of view, for balance and to prevent nausea (problems commonly associated with similar technologies).
A French company is working on new technology to stop people from falling asleep at the wheel, a major cause of road accidents. How will these glasses work? They would detect signs of drowsiness (such as yawning or blinking) and alert the driver with a red flashing light and a warning signal from the driver's connected phone.
Where does Essilor stand in all this? We offer eyecare professionals the opportunity to purchase a revolutionary technological device: the Nautilus. This 3D virtual reality helmet demonstrates the benefits of Essilor products by putting the patient in a completely immersive experience that simulates what they would see when wearing particular Essillor eyewear. The Nautilus is synchronized with a tablet operated by the eyecare professional running the demonstration.
The advances in this exciting and limitless technology just keep on coming. We can’t wait to see what’s next!