Smart contact lenses that carry wearable technologies to a whole new dimension seem to turn the legendary Terminator movie into reality. These lenses, which are expected to be introduced into the market in 2019, can reflect data directly to the human eye!
Particularly the children in the 90s, remember very well the legendary series Terminator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. In this unforgettable movie, it was so creative for many of us that Schwarzenegger, who plays the future humanoid robot, was able to access the information he needed while following the people he wanted, without needing any screens, through his eyes and taking photos of the faces he saw. However, this dream, which strikes today's 90's, has now become an official patented reality.
How long do you think we should wait to add this dizzying innovation to our everyday life, which is known as smart contact lens that brings the wearable technologies to a completely different dimension?
How does smart contact lenses work?
One of the most curiosity about smart contact lenses, which was launched in the year 2014 by South Korea-based technology giant Samsung, and which can reflect data directly to the human eye, is undoubtedly the working principle of these lenses.
Having made major investments in virtual reality in recent years with GearVR, Samsung is also working on the next step in virtual reality, the 'Augmented Reality'. With these smart contact lenses to be produced, it is aimed for users to have a more realistic experience without being dependent on wearable devices (such as GearVR and Google Glass) called headsets. So, when you get a smart contact lens, all you need to do is to wear this lens helping to detect your eye movements with its almost 100 ultra-sensitive sensors! Looking like a transparent lens designed for optical purposes, these devices have control and communication circuits as well as miniature wave-emitting devices and LED components. With the help of these components, words, shapes and photographs can be formed in front of you.
Sensors integrated into these patented smart contact lenses do not only help measuring such obvious movements as winks but also these sensors measure and quantify many different parameters from your eye focus performance to the size of your eyeball and to your blood flow velocity in your eye capillary. So, when you are blinking (yes, using your eyes as a shutter) you can take a photo of the frame you see, or you can automatically adjust the brightness of the screen you need according to your eyeball’s size.
The answer to the question "Where do these contact lenses get energy from?” is a bit controversial for the time being. It is believed that running the smart contact lenses that are expected to have a micro battery through lithium batteries used in current mobile devices can threaten human health. Therefore, experts keep searching on filling of micro-batteries with storage of kinetic energy from the sun or eye movements.
What will smart contact lenses change in our lives?
The most important reason why technology venues think that smart contact lenses are a revolution in wearable technology is that these contact lenses are integrated directly into the eye so that they are not visible from outside. So, when you use a smart contact lens, you do not have to carry a heavy device anywhere in your arm, your head, or your body from outside. Smart contact lenses, which are expected to provide great ease of use with this feature, seem to completely change our mobile device usage habits. For example, mobile screens that we look at six hours a day at a time can lose functionality over time and become just a store and service provider.
It is estimated that the daily amount of data consumed per person will grow like an avalanche with smart contact lens technology, which is expected to allow people to access the information and data they need about 2-3 times faster. On the other hand, it is still a curiosity about how much storage of the information of people we see with the ability to take an eye action or face recognition feature developed for smart contact lenses will contradict the right of privacy.
When can we have smart lenses?
When it comes to telling when this new technology, like science fiction movies, would be on sale. Now, it is among the circulating rumors that the two giant companies Samsung and Google that work on smart contact lenses completed the production of their first prototypes in the past year. However, since contact lenses are placed directly in the human body, they are in the state of medical devices. Therefore, whichever firm produces the smart contact lens, the FDA (American Food and Drug Administration) must obtain approval for human body compliance.
Although not yet certain about the date of release of smart contact lenses expected to undergo serial production after FDA certification, the rumors point to the last quarter of 2019.
