As a glasses wearer for over 40 years, I’ve been an active user of many lens “technologies” Now that I’m nearly 50, I wear progressive lenses which ease my eye strain during screen time and close up work.
However, there is an issue – when I look down, I lose my distance vision. My prescription is -7 diopters so I cannot easily switch between two pairs of glasses, one for distance and one for closeup. An ideal bifocal would enable me to change the my glasses prescription in real time.
That’s now possible with the PixelOptics electronic lens built with liquid crystal technology.
The lenses are made by Panasonic and change prescription on command, either via head movement or by activating a switch.
They hold a charge for 3 days.
Currently, they cost about $1000, but I expect that to come down as demand causes manufacturing scale to expand.
Glasses that change prescription on the fly. That’s cool!
In addition to his CIO role at BIDMC, Dr. Halamka is dean for technology at Harvard Medical School. He blogs at GeekDoctor.blogspot.com.
