A new use for the phases of liquid crystal, changing the nature of eyewear, and even pushing the boundaries of the mechanic assisting the organic. DeepOptics is looking to accomplish all of the above and more with a new omnifocal which adjusts in response to the activity of our eyes.
The Israeli startup has spent the last three years building lenses with a transparent liquid crystal layer that changes its refractive index thus changing the way light bends when passing through it. Just this month, DeepOptics announced it had brought in $4 million in capital to take testing to the next level and potential be ready to ship in the next 2-3 years. While the technology has been seen in smartphones and camera lenses, Deep optics claims to be able to use it in lenses far larger and more powerful and the company hopes to use this to create eyewear for people with presbyopia, or the inability to focus on closer objects as people grow older.
The general function of the glasses will be to focus on the far distance like a normal pair of glasses and then modify themselves when viewing an intermediate distance, such as a computer screen, or a close distance, such as a book. Sensors tracking the eyes will send data about the distance between your pupils to a processor within the glasses which will calculate where you’re looking and adjust the focus. Users will not have to control it and will not need to look through specific areas of the lens. The biggest challenge however, is to have the lenses respond instantly. The faster and more fluid the transition, the more successful the product will be in its intended use and the further it will go into other avenues of production such as virtual reality.
