Contact lenses
are no longer just for seeing better, if new technology launched this week at
the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2021 is anything to go by.
InWith Corporation this week premiered a platform for computerised applications in soft contact lenses, allowing for smart contact lens technology. The InWith platform being premiered at CES 2021 is a configuration to enable developers to place augmented vision display chip applications into any soft hydrogel contact lenses of the kind that millions of people wear daily. InWith claims to be “the only company to publicly display this capability to integrate display circuitry into modern, soft contact lens materials”. Other companies, it says, are attempting to achieve this in harder and less comfortable “scleral lenses”.
The announcements by InWith follow the company’s 2020 display of stretchable electronic circuitry in name brand Bausch & Lomb contact lenses.
InWith has pioneered the techniques of integration of solid components and circuits into hydrogel materials by allowing the materials to expand and contract in the normal manufacturing process. This breakthrough enables multiple developers to create displays and ophthalmic improvement applications for contact lenses and intraocular lenses used by millions of people.
Applications range from the latest AR/XR visual applications to giving better sight to people who suffer from Myopia or Presbyopia. It enables what InWith calls “an electronic revolution for the future of eyesight and ophthalmic capabilities, into future, connected and tuneable with mobile devices”.
“As some very big name companies are seeking to develop augmented reality glasses and goggles,” the company says, “the soft contact lens remains the ultimate medium for discreet augmented reality, comfortable and aesthetically pleasing.”
