IXI's autofocusing lenses are almost ready to replace multifocal glasses

Posted by amichail 2 days ago

IXI's autofocusing lenses are almost ready to replace multifocal glasses(www.engadget.com)

50 points | 15 comments

heikkilevanto 27 minutes ago|

I am not so sure about the eye tracking and autofocus stuff, but would love a simple focus knob on the frames to adjust instead of changing to a different pair of glasses. I suspect the tracking and focusing electronics must be somewhat clumsy and a battery life of a single day sounds suboptimal for me.

RickJWagner 15 minutes ago|

Add to that the blinking LEDs that track eye movements. No thanks.

isityettime 54 minutes ago||

I'm under 40, recently had cataract surgery to address mild cararacts, and deeply regret that choice. I strongly feel I lost more than I gained, and now need to carry multiple pairs of glasses every time I go out to engage many common activities.

Unfortunately I don't have presbyopia at all (my surgery still left me myopic) and my inability to change focus distance is drastically more severe than what happens naturally with aging. This first generation of IXI glasses won't be useful to me.

But I really, really want something like it.

dmayle 48 minutes ago|

You can swap out your default lenses with multifocal lenses... I use multifocal contact lenses, and my wife and my mother both had the surgery. My wife got the panoptix (no need for glasses at all) and my mother got vivity (just need reading glasses). At night, there are halos with the panoptix lenses (same with the multifocal contact lenses), the severity is not always the same per-person, and it bothers some people more than others (interferes with night driving), but it's an option. Yes, it's another surgery, but depending on your ability to afford it, and the amount it bothers you, it is still an option. From my point of view (admittedly, with contact lenses), going from three different pairs of glasses (vision, vision+reading, plain contact lenses+reading) to contact lenses with no glasses at all was just unquestionably worth it.

isityettime 18 minutes ago||

I'm unfortunately not a candidate for multifocal intraocular lenses due to other problems with my eyes, otherwise I would have gone with them for the first surgery.

Multifocal contacts are probably not a good long-term fit for those same reasons, and there's the same problem with progressive lenses. Old-school bifocals are okay, but limited in the usual way.

amichail 8 minutes ago||

Is it true that multifocal glasses are only important for people who drive?

alsetmusic 39 minutes ago||

In the last two to three years, I've hit a point where I need to take off my glasses (near-sighted, can't see things far away) to read my phone. I can still make out the text with them on, but it's physically uncomfortable and holding it at a distance helps.

I've been thinking about the existence of bifocals and how they aren't ideal as I come to terms with the inconvenience of removing my glasses and putting them back on repeatedly as I task switch. This sounds pretty great and I hope it's not smoke and mirrors (given enough time, science fiction tends to become reality, so I'm hopeful).

iandanforth 1 hour ago||

Putting two adaptive dynamic systems next to each other is tricky. Your eyes and these glasses could easily create a positive or negative feedback loop or begin oscillating. So while cool I hope they have some experienced controls people on staff to detect and prevent such things.

kennyadam 1 hour ago|

If only they’d had a frontend web dev on the team!

homeonthemtn 1 hour ago||

As a glasses wearer I'm looking forward to this tech. I like the idea of natural, seamless auto focusing, and as a future fantasy, a simple, toggleable overlay of info would be nifty.

Going out foraging and being able to identify plants and fungi by simply resting my vision on something for a pause is the sci Fi tech I actually want

pavel_lishin 1 hour ago||

Honestly, even if they could shift focus via some sort of "command" - a muscle tick or something - that would be a game changer as it is. Every time I play D&D, I have to keep taking off and putting on my glasses so I can read my notes, and see my players' faces clearly.

(I'm aware of the multifocal glasses mentioned in the article; they didn't work well for me.)

gedy 14 minutes ago|

I'm in a similar situation but found that getting "computer glasses" made which use the near prescription (and are not for long distance) work well for this. (I run D&D as well lol) I could not handle multifocal at all, was disorienting for me.

dnnddidiej 1 hour ago||

How does it compare to multifocal contact lenses?

pavel_lishin 1 hour ago|

My understanding of those is that contact lenses work the same way that multifocal glasses work, with the added disadvantage that every time you blink, it takes them a second to re-align correctly. So this should be completely different, if it works.

ece 1 hour ago|

I wonder how long the wait will be for AR glasses to have this option too.