Have You "Charged" Your Eyeglasses Today?

By Thomas P. Finley, OD

Dr. Finley's Family Eyecare

. http://visionsource-drfinley.net/

More Vision & Eye Care Articles

Have You "Charged" Your Eyeglasses Today?

A new device has joined smartphones, iPads and music players that you charge overnight electronic eyeglasses. These glasses have tiny batteries, microchips and assorted electronics to turn reading power on when you need it and off when you don't.

The new electronic eyeglasses, called emPower!, have a liquid crystal optical insert in the bottom part of the lenses. The crystals change how the lenses refract or bend light.

To increase the reading power in these glasses, touch the side of the frame, or simply tilt their chin down and allow the lens to automatically change focusing power. Batteries in the frame send an electric current that changes the orientation of the crystal molecules.

Touch the side of the frame again or change the tilt of your head, and the reading power disappears. Turn it off to hit a golf ball; turn it on to read the scorecard. The power automatically changes due to an accelerator in the lens, similar to the way an iPhone changes orientation from portrait to landscape.

PixelOptics emPower! Overview

The world's first electronic eyewear that will allow the wearer to have the type of vision they need, when they need it. The near reading power of the lens can be switched on and off as needed. Eyeglasses focus fast, have no moving parts, and change focus without making a sound.

emPower! technology is found in many of today's high-end consumer electronics, including microchips, accelerometers and rechargeable batteries.

When a wearer tilts their head down to view an object up close, the accelerometer detects the motion. The microchip sends an electronic signal to the lenses and alters how the liquid crystals refract light, changing the prescription of the lens.

The lenses have two modes of operation automatic and manual. In automatic mode, the switch between full or partial reading prescription depends on where the wearer looks. The wearer looks down and the full reading prescription turns on; the wearer looks straight ahead and the lens returns to the partial reading prescription focusing in the blink of an eye.

In manual mode, the person decides when to adjust the glasses to a reading prescription. Control of the manual mode is performed on the right temple of the eyeglasses and simply requires a tap of the finger.

Just like your cell phone, emPower! eyewear will need to be charged every few days. Typically, a single charge should last between 2 and 3 days. To charge, simply place the eyewear in the special charging tray (think PDA charging mat); leave it over night and it will be fully charged the next day.

The lenses provide a larger reading area, when needed; larger than normal progressive lens.

Virtually no peripheral “swim” or distortion in the periphery of the lens.

emPower! eyeglasses have been perceived by wearers to be superior in seven out of eight vision performance categories when compared to a leading progressive addition lens design. emPower! performed equally in the remaining one category.