Liquid lens "smart glasses" prototyped at University of Utah

[gary]

In a 25 Feb 2017 report at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE) Spectrum Magazine, Alyssa Pagano reports on prototype
liquid lens smart glasses at the University of Utah.

Originally Posted by Alyssa Pagano, IEEE Spectrum

Researchers at the University of Utah produced a prototype pair of these glasses by using flexible lenses and piezoelectric pistons. For users who are both nearsighted and farsighted, the lens’ curvature is gradually shifted between optical powers by the pistons. As the lenses change they can bring into focus any point along the way. This is possible because the lenses aren’t made of rigid materials, as they would be in traditional glasses. Instead, two flexible membranes encase glycerol, a highly refractive liquid, to comprise each lens. The lenses stretch and become more convex as transparent pistons push them forward, and more concave as the pistons move back.

To adapt to an individual's particular vision, the glasses require two pieces of information. One is the prescription, which the user enters into a mobile app. The other is the distance to the desired focal point, which is measured by a sensor in the center of the frames. A microcontroller in one stem of the glasses stores the prescription information and receives the distance measure from the sensor. It plugs those numbers into a specialized algorithm, which in turn determines how much voltage to apply to the piezoelectric pistons to achieve the desired curvature.

Article and video here -
http://spectrum.ieee.org/video/semic...t-to-your-eyes

[bojan]

I wanted to patent this lens 30 year ago...
Well, c'est la vie....

[Wavytone]

Bojan I have a much simpler solution.

The eye has a focal length of ~ 17mm give or take a bit, and in daylight is working at f/8-f/15. This means it has considerable depth of focus - and hence exact focus is not really that important.

My solution is to wear prescription specs set up for long distance. Each lens is drilled and has a tiny neodymium magnet inserted near the outer edge. These magnets are about the size of the head of a match. You can have any slim frame (usually I choose titanium ones), half-frames or even frameless if you dare.

A matching pair of clip-on lenses are made, which have the diopter power set for reading the computer- i.e. about +2.5. These are standard stock lenses, not prescription, and relatively cheap as all they have to do is cut them down to size and insert the magnets.

I've been wearing several pairs now over about 15 years, and my optician thinks its a great idea.

With this setup you have perfect wall-to-wall vision for long distance with just the specs; slap on the clipons and you have sharp as a tack, wide-field close vision. Even better you can have multiple clip-ons - and they can be stacked (!) for really really close work like threading a needle.

[bojan]

Not bad...
I am stacking $5 non-prescription glasses as they are (see avatar... I don't have astigmatism... I am suffering only from too short arms :-) ) - +1 ~ +1.5 is for "normal" vision (including driving), +2.5 is for comp screen and both (+3.5 ~ +4) are for close-ups.
Yes, simple solutions are actually way better that all that technology that surrounds us more and more... and preventing us to think sometimes.. but then again simplicity doesn't create neither jobs nor money....