They look like ordinary glasses, but they actually come with advanced technical specifications.
In a call on Zoom, Nico Eden, the CEO and co-founder of the Finnish eyewear company "IXI," lifted frames of a new product equipped with lenses containing liquid crystals, which means that the vision correction properties in them can be changed instantly.
This pair of glasses can correct the vision of a person who typically uses two glasses, one for near and the other for distance vision.
Eden says: "We can rotate these liquid crystals using an electric field," explaining that they are "completely easy to adjust."
The placement of liquid crystals affects the passage of light through the lenses, and the built-in eye tracker allows the glasses to respond to whatever correction the wearer needs at any moment.
However, glasses equipped with modern technologies generally have a checkered history - for example, Google’s smart glasses "Glass".
Eden acknowledges that consumer acceptance of the new product is essential, as most people do not want to become robotic humans, adding, "We have to make our products look familiar, like the ordinary glasses commonly used."
The market for eyewear technologies is likely to grow in the coming years.
It is also expected that farsightedness in old age - a condition related to age that makes it difficult for the affected person to focus on close objects - will become more common as the world's population ages. Myopia, or vision impairment, is also increasing significantly.
Glasses have remained largely the same for decades, as bifocal lenses - where the lens is divided into two areas, usually for nearsightedness or farsightedness - require the wearer to direct their vision through the relevant area, depending on what they want to look at, in order to see clearly.
Variable-focus lenses perform a similar function, but the transitions in them are smoother.
In contrast, "auto-focus" lenses can adjust part or all of the lens automatically, and even adapt to changes in the user's vision over time.
Eden admits: "The first lenses we produced were very bad," noting that those prototypes were "blurry," and the quality of the lenses at their edges was noticeably poor.
But the newer versions have proven effective in testing, according to Eden. For example, participants in the company's trials were asked to read something on a page and then look at something far away to see if the glasses responded smoothly to this rapid shift.
Eden says the eye tracker inside the glasses can't exactly determine what the wearer is looking at, although some activities - such as reading something - are detectable in principle, given the nature of eye movements when reading.
Considering the precise response of these glasses to the movements of the wearer's eyes, it is important that their frames fit perfectly, as stated by Emilia Helen, product manager.
The frames produced by IXI are adjustable, but not to a great extent, due to the fine electronics inside them, Helen says: "We have some flexibility, but not full flexibility."
For this reason, the company hopes to ensure that the small set of frames it has designed fits a wide range of faces.
Eden says the small battery inside IXI's auto-focus frames is supposed to last for two days, adding that it is possible to recharge it overnight while the user sleeps.
But he did not specify a launch date - which he plans to reveal later this year.
As for the cost, when asked if he is considering a price of 1000 British pounds, he simply said, "I smile when you say that, but I will not confirm it."
