[Njtechdiv] Smart Glasses?

[Mario Brusco]

	Smart Eyeglasses Help You See Clearly Without the Need to Change 
Proscriptions.
https://coolblindtech.com/smart-eyeglasses-help-you-see-clearly-without-the-need-to-change-proscriptions/

by James Oates On January 30, 2017

The University of Utah has come up with a remarkable concept, a pair of 
smart glasses that will adjust to your proscription, just by uploading 
the proscription by way of a smart phone app. Many people need glasses, 
especially as they age, and there is often a constant need to purchase 
new glasses as your proscription changes. Now imagine how much easier it 
will be to maintain good vision with this new concept.

 From the developer

Jan. 25, 2017 – The days of wearing bifocals or constantly swapping out 
reading glasses might soon come to an end.
  University of Utah electrical and computer engineering professor 
Carlos Mastrangelo, and doctoral student Nazmul Hasan have created 
“smart glasses” with liquid-based lenses that can automatically adjust 
the focus on what a person is seeing, whether it is far away or close up.
“Most people who get reading glasses have to put them on and take them 
off all the time,” says Mastrangelo, who also is a professor for USTAR, 
the Utah Science Technology and Research economic development 
initiative. “You don’t have to do that anymore. You put these on, and 
it’s always clear.”
The human eye has a lens inside that adjusts the focal depth depending 
on what you look at. But as people age, the lens loses its ability to 
change focus, which is why many people ultimately require reading 
glasses or bifocals to see objects up close and regular eyeglasses to 
see far away, also known as farsightedness and nearsightedness, 
respectively.
  So Mastrangelo and Hasan have created eyeglass lenses made of 
glycerin, a thick colorless liquid enclosed by flexible rubber-like 
membranes in the front and back. The rear membrane in each lens is 
connected to a series of three mechanical actuators that push the 
membrane back and forth like a transparent piston, changing the 
curvature of the liquid lens and therefore the focal length between the 
lens and the eye.
“The focal length of the glasses depends on the shape of the lens, so to 
change the optical power we actually have to change the membrane shape,” 
Mastrangelo says.
  The lenses are placed in special eyeglass frames also invented by 
Mastrangelo, Hasan and other members of the research group with 
electronics and a battery to control and power the actuators. In the 
bridge of the glasses is a distance meter that measures the distance 
from the glasses to an object via pulses of infrared light. When the 
wearer looks at an object, the meter instantly measures the distance and 
tells the actuators how to curve the lenses. If the user then sees 
another object that’s closer, the distance meter readjusts and tells the 
actuators to reshape the lens for farsightedness. Hasan says the lenses 
can change focus from one object to another in 14 milliseconds. A 
rechargeable battery in the frames could last more than 24 hours per 
charge, Mastrangelo says.
  The lenses are placed in battery-powered frames that can automatically 
adjust the focal length of the lenses based on what the wearer is 
looking at. Researchers expect to have smaller, lighter frames with the 
technology in as early as three years.
  Before putting them on for the first time, all users have to do is 
input their eyeglasses prescription into an accompanying smartphone app, 
which then calibrates the lenses automatically via a Bluetooth 
connection. Users only needs to do that once except for when their 
prescription changes over time, and theoretically, eyeglass wearers will 
never have to buy another pair again since these glasses would 
constantly adjust to their eyesight.
  Currently, the team has constructed a bulky working prototype that 
they put on display at last month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las 
Vegas, but expect to constantly improve the design to make them smaller 
and lighter. Mastrangelo said a lighter, more attractive pair could hit 
the marketplace in as early as three years and that a startup company, 
Sharpeyes LLC, has been created to commercialize the glasses.
Source.