I have bad vision. Not super bad, but bad enough that I should probably have contacts (I lost my glasses three years ago). But whenever I see contacts in the wild, they’re dry, scratchy, or forgotten overnight; do I really want to endure that, or am I okay with my 20/50-ish vision? Well, new developments coming down the pipes from some optics-boffins may convince me to take the plunge.
First, they’re planning on adding a display layer — a micro-LED array printed onto the lens that could display whatever you wanted. Of course, this is miles off, and among the stepping stones:
We need antennae on these contact lenses anyway because we need to transmit data to them. The other way we’re looking at right now is to incorporate photovoltaic [solar] cells.
Yeah; antennae on my eye, and I have to look at the sun to charge them up. It’s going to be a hard sell. But at least they might also be self-moisturizing. They’re looking into ways of trapping your natural lubricants (pipe down, they’re talking about minute amounts of hyaluronic acid) in the lenses to prevent protein buildup. Sounds good to me, and it may even occur.