Tag Archives: eyeglasses

Magnifying glasses turn into classic magnifying lens when not in use

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One of the things that I have to accept as a person that’s getting older and that has bad eyesight is the fact that I can’t read books with small fonts anymore. I’m not yet at the point where magnifying glasses are actually needed but I know we’ll eventually get there. There are more convenient ways now of using magnifying lenses instead of the old school way of actually holding a lens in one hand with the reading material on the other hand. This concept for magnifying glasses is something I may eventually want or need.

Designer: Jongcheol Yang

The VAN magnifying glasses concept fixes the problem of unnecessary parts that may cause inconvenience or even dizziness to those that need to use this kind of glasses. The idea is for this to be similar to reading glasses in a sense that you only wear them when you need to use them. The magnifying part is only placed on the lower part where the magnifying lens is located. And when you’re feeling dizzy or you need to rest your eyes, you just have to look straight ahead since the lens part will not be there anymore.

The other cool thing about this concept is that if you don’t need to wear the glasses, you can just fold up the front and then the “legs”. It will then turn into the classic magnifying glass that we’re used to and then you can store it in your bag. They don’t show it in the product renders but maybe if you just rotate the lens itself away from the stem, then you can use it like a regular magnifying glass without having to wear it as actual glasses.

It’s an interesting concept for sure, particularly for people who already have a hard time reading things that have small prints. Of course it’s another thing to add to things you need to bring and to mind. But at least it solves some of the issues that come with current magnifying glasses.

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These IR-blocking sunglasses are great for your eyes as well as for your privacy

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Most regular sunglasses only block UV rays, but not infrared rays from damaging your eyes. Kolari hopes to change that with their cutting-edge IR-blocking sunglasses that protect your eyes from the sun, and your face from unwanted facial recognition systems. Pretty cool, right?

When you wear regular sunglasses, the tinted lenses help cut the bright glare of the daytime sun. This does two things – it helps you see clearly without needing to half-shut your eyes, but it also makes your pupils dilate to let more light information in. Conventional sunglasses don’t do much to protect your eyes while they’re dilated in the daytime. The most glasses will ever do is block UV, blue light, and glare… but there’s one culprit that nobody focuses on, infrared. Humans don’t see infrared rays, but they can have long-term effects on your eyes. Sure, one can argue that you’d need high exposure to infrared rays, but think about how often you step out into the sun on a daily basis and all that begins adding up. While your regular Sunglass Hut shades won’t do much about IR rays, one company’s trying to make sunglasses safer for your eyes. Kolari Vision started its journey designing IR-protective accessories for cameras, but is now looking at the bigger picture by designing protective eyewear for everyone. The Kolari Shades are made from actual glass, and can block UV and up to 99% of infrared light from making its way into your eyes. This doesn’t impact the clarity with which you see, but it does help protect your vision… just like any sunglass should!

Designer: Ilija Melentijevic, PhD (founder of Kolari Vision)

Click Here to Buy Now: $169. Hurry, less than 72-hours to go!

Styled to look like a stylish pair of sunglasses, the Kolari Shades give your eyes the comfort and protection they need in the outdoors. “Our goal was to maximize clarity, eliminate color shifts, and block all unwanted wavelengths in order to give your eyes the most rested, neutral experience possible to minimize eye fatigue. Our beta testers are calling the result a breath of fresh air for your eyes,” say the folks at Kolari Vision. Originally founded as a photography company, the folks at Kolari realized that the gear made for cameras seemed to be better in quality than anything the eyewear industry produced. The irony being that your eyes are so much more precious than a $500 camera… so why is it that only camera sensors get taken such good care of, but not the original human cameras – our eyes??

Bridging that gap, the Kolari Shades offer a one-of-a-kind IR and UV protection to your eyes. The sunglasses are fitted with lenses that look just like your average tinted lenses, but they possess the unique ability to block anywhere between 90-99% of all infrared rays and 100% of all UV rays shining through the glass and into your eyes. The benefits of this are two-fold – there’s an obvious health benefit, given how eyes (just like skin) can respond adversely to excessive exposure to certain wavelengths of infrared light. However, a second benefit comes in the form of privacy protection. Most cameras rely on capturing some form of IR to ‘see’, and the shades can effectively block this ability. This prevents unwanted cameras from capturing facial recognition information without your consent. In fact, the iPhone relies on an IR blaster to power its FaceID unlocking feature – which can be disabled with the Kolari Shades. Sure, that means you need to either take off your sunglasses to unlock your phone (or just use the pattern lock instead), but the privacy implications are far-reaching too, as people like law enforcement can’t maliciously unlock your phone by holding it up to your face.

Kolari Shades are truly color-neutral and protect your eyes from all damaging wavelengths of light.

The beauty of the Kolari Shades is that their spectacles are made from actual glass – a distinction that sets it apart from even luxury eyewear. Most eyewear companies use a form of clear plastic for their lenses; a sensible choice because they’re scratch-resistant and they don’t shatter… but the one big caveat with these lenses lies their imperfections. Micro-imperfections in these lenses (even in the ones found in high-end tinted eyewear) can warp the way you see the world, which is why glass offers a MUCH better alternative. Kolari Vision’s lenses rely on industry-leading Corning Gorilla Glass (yes, the same durable one used in your phone) coupled with 51 layers of anti-reflective and anti-smudge coating. While Gorilla Glass can often be 10x more expensive than your standard plastic lenses, Kolari Vision’s still managed to keep their costs competitive, offering cutting-edge materials for the same price you’d pay for a pair of Ray-Bans.

Preserve your anonymity — Kolari Shades block infrared-based facial recognition systems.

Corning Gorilla Glass and titanium frames make the Kolari Shades extra tough.

The glasses aren’t the only durable part of the Kolari Shades either. The aviator-inspired eyewear sport frames are made from titanium, enhancing the overall durability to a level you’d probably find in smartphones (hint: the titanium iPhone 15 Pro and Galaxy S24 Ultra). You can choose between silver or gold-plated frames, while Kolari offers three lens options – a basic tinted-black (90% IR blocking), a bronze-tinted ultra lens (99% IR blocking), and an ultra gradient lens (with the same 99% IR blocking). The company’s working on newer frame designs and even plans on offering mirror-finish lenses that should take your eyewear’s swag to an entirely new level!

Click Here to Buy Now: $169. Hurry, less than 72-hours to go!

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These special eyeglasses by a Japanese startup can cure myopia or nearsightedness

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Myopia or nearsightedness is an extremely common vision condition that afflitcs a lot of people, including me. Essentially what this means is that we can focus on objects that are close, with ease, but struggle with items that are placed further away. These items seem blurred or unclear to us. This usually occurs when a person spends too much time focusing on nearby items, causing our eyeballs to actually change in shape over time, making it too long front-to-back. And with people spending most of their day interacting with screens, it isn’t a shocker how widespread this condition is. In fact, this common condition is growing so rapidly, that it is predicted that by 2050, half of the world’s population will be affected by it. This is where Japanese pharmaceutical startup Kubota decided to step in. They’ve designed special eyeglasses that can improve or even cure Myopia!

Designer: Kubota Glass

Kubota’s wearable design has been amped with an array of nano projectors, which project light at the wearer’s retina in a specific pattern, to cause blurring at short distances, in turn forcing them to look further away. This helps the eyeball to morph back into its original shape and allows one’s vision to return to normal. You’re supposed to wear the glasses for a couple of hours a day, usually when you’re simply relaxing or unwinding in the comfort of your home. With the help of AR tech, the glasses create, “an image environment that makes you feel as if you are looking far away even when you are at home.”

“Projection of a blurred image onto the peripheral part of the retina (myopic defocus stimulation) resulted in a reduction in the axial length of the eye (the length from the cornea to the retina) compared to the target eye — proof of concept has been confirmed.”, said Kubota, after conducting multiple tests in May and August 2020, using various devices.

At the moment only 20 pairs have been produced and gone on sale in Japan. Each eyeglass costs $5700 and comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee – basically a complete refund if they don’t work. We can’t wait for the glasses to be launched globally, and witness how they could actually help people with Myopia…who knows maybe I could be one of the early bird shoppers!

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These 3D-printed glasses are custom-designed using biometric scans of your face

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For centuries at this point, the way we chose our spectacles has been pretty standard. You try on hundreds of frames, hoping to stumble across the one that fits your facial measurements, sense of style, and comfort levels. This is a long-drawn process that takes time, energy, and effort without the guarantee that you’ll ever find the perfect frame. Breezm flips the process over by reverse-engineering it. Instead of looking for pre-made frames for you, Breezm analyzes your face shape, measurements, and style requirements and builds out the perfect pair of frames for you. Instead of rummaging through hundreds of frames before finding one that feels ‘satisfactory’, Breezm just creates a bespoke pair of glasses designed to suit your needs. Using as many as 100,000 data points, Breezm helps you find the right glasses that suit you perfectly in mere seconds… because the glasses that you get were ‘made for you’.

Designers: Zenma Park, Will Sung, MG Cho & Ted Choi

Click Here to Buy Now: $129 $198 (35% off). Hurry, for a limited time only!

Almost like a modern version of Cinderella’s glass-shoe story, Breezm is using AI and advanced 3D printing to disrupt the spectacle industry. A winner of the CES Award, Red Dot Design Award, and the iF Design Award, Breezm’s frames are bespoke, lightweight, affordable, durable, and sustainable.

The process for getting your pair of Breezm glasses starts with simply scanning your face using their proprietary A.I.-powered iOS mobile app, which calculates multiple factors, like your face width and height, pupillary distance, nose height and width, and even more nuanced features like your pantoscopic angle (or the tilt of your eyes and face). All these inputs get fed into Breezm’s database which allows it to generate frames for you based on your ergonomic requirements. You can then view the virtual glasses superimposed over your face on their iOS app and choose the style that suits you the best. You can even choose from 8 different colors as well as lens characteristics for a pair of glasses that are 100% unique to you and made to order, quite like a good, well-tailored suit.

Personalize – Mix and match the colors on their iOS app based on their 23 frame designs that flatter every face shape and skin tone.

Crafted for Ultimate Comfort – Based on the scan results, their Al recommends an array of frame designs that best suit you.

Light as a Feather – Weighs 7g.

Prescription-ready Premium Lens – All their lenses are prescription-ready and benefit from top treatments, including anti-scratch, anti-reflection, and UV protection.

High Precision 3D Printing – 3D printed in their smart factory using the industry’s most advanced Multi Jet Fusion and Selective Laser Sintering printers. The printers’ powder bed fusion process ensures top-level consistency, precision, and quality.

Dyeing & Drying – Their in-house dyeing machinery and process bring out eight unique colors.

The frames you get aren’t your standard acetate glasses. Unlike acetate frames that result in vast amounts of plastic wastage, Breezm’s frames are 3D printed using selective laser sintering, which results in virtually no wasted material while also helping create frames that are 6x lighter (at just 7 grams) and have a wonderful smooth finish. This doesn’t just make Breezm’s frames sustainable, but also goes a long way in making them affordable for their style (because there’s less material wastage but also because each pair of glasses is made to order and shipped directly to consumers without any middlemen). The frames are made from an FDA-approved PA-12 (Polyamide) material that’s more durable than acetate too before being outfitted with beta-titanium temple stems, and you can additionally choose to have your Breezm spectacles outfitted with a variety of lens types including 1.67 high index lenses, blue-light blocking ones, photochromic ones, and even tinted lenses so you can rock your frames as sunglasses.

Starting at $129, the Breezm frames come with a premium protective case, a microfiber lens cloth, an eyewear personalization report, and a bookmark made from leftover raw material. The Breezm iOS app is set to launch this October once their Kickstarter campaign ends.

Click Here to Buy Now: $129 $198 (35% off). Hurry, for a limited time only!

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This AR glasses concept tries to make smart glasses more practical and less geeky

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Our current civilization lives and thrives on information. Although there’s no escaping physical reality, much of this information is now stored and transmitted digitally. And it’s not just the usual culprits like emails, messages, videos, and photos. Even locations and physical objects can sometimes have digital information attached to them, information that we can’t see with just our naked eyes. Augmented or mixed reality is one of the technologies that try to bridge the worlds of physical and digital, but experiencing it in real life isn’t as magical as it may sound or look. Headgear and eyewear designed for XR use have yet to become practical for everyday use, and this concept design tries to find a compromise between form and function for smart glasses that won’t make you look like a Borg.

Designer: Philipp Pisarevskiy

There have been various attempts at designing AR glasses that can be worn by normal people, and Google Glass may have been the most popular attempt. Its popularity, however, comes not just from the brand but also from how it failed. While the second-gen Glass still exists for some enterprise customers, the consumer version’s chances for success have pretty much died by now. And it’s probably for the best, considering the first Google Glass’ design was rather uninspiring and its functionality severely limited.

There have been many attempts since then to come up with the perfect design for AR-powered smart glasses. Some look like overgrown shades, while others were more promising as traditional-looking eyewear, albeit with thick frames and arms. The latter, however, is still limited because comfort and aesthetic might become compromised as you try to cram more electronics into its body.

The One-Week AR glasses try to solve that problem by moving all electronics, lenses, and projectors to modules on each side of the glasses close to a wearer’s temples. Yes, they do look like big plastic clips hanging off your glasses’ arms or temples, but their shape also follows what would have been the form of regular eyewear with thick frames. Despite the unconventional appearance, this design actually brings some advantages over designs like the Focals North, especially in terms of flexibility.

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For one, you can have two displays, one on each side, if you can sync the displays to work together. Alternatively, you can split the electronics between the two sides, leaving the left or the right as the sole projector and controller. The top edge of the module has a long strip that can be used for touch gestures like tapping, sliding, or even pinching. The modules can have a wireless charging coil so that the glasses themselves can be charged without a cable.

Although it’s not explicitly stated in the design, it seems that it’s possible for the One-Week AR Glasses to be modular, mixing and matching parts and designs to taste. It might need to have extensive use of wireless technologies or at least have conduits inside the frame of the glasses, but it would definitely be doable from a technology standpoint. Such a design could open the market of smart eyewear to more people, particularly those who view glasses both as functional tools as well as fashion accessories.

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This eyewear concept keeps your eyes from drying up after hours in front of a computer

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There are plenty of ways to keep our eyes moist, but if you’re wearing glasses already, this could be a better option.

With almost everyone using something with a screen these days, our eyes are bound to get more easily exhausted than ever before. Even if you’re not always looking at a computer or a phone, however, your work or living environment would put a strain on your eyes that results in them getting dry too often. Our bodies have their own natural way of creating moisture for the eyes, but these are no longer enough, thanks to present-day lifestyles. Unsurprisingly, there’s a market for accessories and medicine to help keep eyeballs moist, but this new idea tries to combine both artificial and natural means in eyewear that looks almost stylish without trying to be.

Designer: Xinyu Ye

It is a biological imperative that our eyes remain moist; otherwise, they start to get irritated and feel painful. Our body’s natural mechanism is to blink to lubricate the front of the eyes, but that isn’t enough anymore because of how we live these days. Whether it’s because we’ve been staring at screens all day long or there is air blowing directly in front of us, or there’s really just more heat than usual around us, our eyes need all the help they can get, even from external sources.

Humans have also developed ways to moisturize our eyes when necessary, mostly using eyedrops. There are, however, also accessories like glasses that try to prevent eyes from drying up too much. Finally, there is also the more expensive but more permanent solution of surgical treatment, but that’s almost always just a last resort if nothing else worked. Unsurprisingly, it also carries the biggest risk, too.

Top-down Glasses is an attempt at rethinking and redesigning one of those long-lasting but affordable solutions. Wet room glasses, as they are called, are like goggles that try to trap and slow down the evaporation of tears and moisture that lubricate our eyes. At the same time, they try to maintain moisture around the eyes by creating space that is both well-ventilated and moist. Unfortunately, typical wet room glasses rate quite low on the comfort scale, which is what this design is trying to solve with an almost simple fix.

The trick was apparently to have the glasses tilt minus 30 degrees downward when worn while working on a desk. At this angle, the water from the rear of the temples is able to flow naturally to the top and front of the frame to create that much-needed moist space around the eyes. At the same time, however, the glasses don’t simply rely on external means to keep the eye moist. It uses pulses to remind the wearer to blink their eyes more often, creating the natural lubrication that their eyes need.

Curiously, the Top-Down Glasses weren’t designed with fashion in mind, but they still ended up looking quite fashionable. In a way, this would encourage wearing these glasses more regularly since people won’t look awkward or out of place. The design also seems to work with prescription lenses, so the wearer won’t have to trade one comfort for another just to keep their eyes moist.

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Skull Eyeglass Holders are a Deathly Vision

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Skulls: I find them fascinating. They’re a reminder of our own mortality, and my wife also likes to remind me mine is unusually thicker than others. Whatever that means! Crafted by Etsy shop G7T6 Design, these Human Skull Eyewear Stands are hand-cast and painted to provide a unique way to store and display your eyewear with a serious memento mori (Latin: remember that you must die) vibe.

Available in black, silver, and gold, the stands cost around $44 and are definitely a conversation piece. A conversation that will likely involve me trying to convince a guest it’s made from the actual skull of one of my enemies slain in a medieval sword battle. I’m a convincing liar.

Alternatively, just toss your sunglasses down wherever when you arrive home – that’s what I do. Sure I’ve sat on countless pairs and have to buy new ones constantly, but that’s why they sell them near the cash register at gas stations, right?

[via DudeIWantThat]

Elastic Hinge eyeglasses is an alternative design for traditional metal hinges

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As someone who has worn glasses for decades, I’ve had my fair share of pairs over the years. The reasons vary, from having to get the lens upgraded to losing them (which is more often than I would like) to having broken frames and hinges. For people who are pretty clumsy, the fragility of the material of eyeglasses is always a challenge. So product designers who experiment with various materials are always welcome.

Designers: Gilli Kuchik and Ran Amitai

The idea behind the Elastic Hinge project is already in the name of the glasses themselves. They wanted to create something that would use different materials rather than traditional metals. After experimenting with various folding techniques from other products, they got their inspiration eventually from how tent rods are structured. The basic concept is to thread an elastic cord in the channels of the glasses frame.

The glasses themselves are made through SLA 3D printing technology and so they were also able to take advantage of the small inner channels in both the frames and the handles. This technique made it more transparent and had voids which is where they were able to thread the elastic cords. They used translucent materials for the frames and brightly colored cords so people can see how these elastic hinges actually work.

There are three final models: a traditional blue colored one, a pair using pink frames and purple lenses for the more colorfully adventurous, and a white-framed one with gradient blue-green lenses and a sort-of bridge on top. Using elastic hinges instead of metals is a good alternative and should also make the glasses less brittle and less fragile. We don’t know if mass-producing something like this would be less expensive in the long run.

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Liquid-Filled Eyeglasses Automatically Adjust Focus: Bye Bye Bifocals!

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Have 20/20 vision? That must be nice. My eyes are awful, and if they were any worse I’d be wearing dual eye patches right now. But here to push the envelope in vision correction is University of Utah electrical engineering professor Carlos Mastrangelo and Ph.D. student Mohit Karkanis, who are developing a pair of “smart” eyeglasses that automatically adjust their focus to the distance of whatever a wearer is looking at.

The lenses consist of a thin window that clear glycerine can be pumped in or out to change their shape and adjust focus based on the distance an object is from the wearer’s face. That data is gathered by a distance sensor, and a processor (both housed in the glass’s thick arms) makes the necessary changes in glycerine volume in the lenses. Goodbye, bifocals! Or, in my case, goodbye quadfocals!

This is definitely a fascinating use of technology and all, but I think I speak for everyone here when I say but where are the x-ray glasses? I mean I thought this was supposed to be the future, I should be able to spot winning lotto scratchers without actually having to buy and scratch them first.

Philippe Starck biotech eyewear using forged carbon is inspired by nature in more ways than one

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There is finally fashionable eyewear that not only lets you see better but also makes you feel better about the environment.

Eyewear, especially eyeglasses, seem to embody complete opposites. They are one of the most utilitarian accessories we put on our bodies, yet they also need to be the most elegant because they’re always on our faces for everyone to see. Many people depend on them in order to even function properly, and yet these glasses are sometimes broken too easily and replaced too often. It seems, however, that famed designer Philippe Starck has found a way to solve this puzzle, and, like many good designs, he only needed to look to nature and the human body for the answers.

Designer: Philippe Starck in collaboration with Luxottica

If there wasn’t yet a study on the material waste created by discarded eyewear frames, there probably should be one. Made from a mix of metal and plastic, these eyeglasses might not be the most sustainable accessories we put on our bodies and faces. True to his vision of democratic design, Mr. Starck has created the BIOTECH PARIS collection that solves two eyewear design problems in one go.

Philippe Starck and Luxottica collaborated on this new STARCK BIOTECH PARIS collection to bring stylish eyewear that’s both more ergonomic and more sustainable as well. The PARIS eyewear collection uses forged carbon, a material renowned for its lightweight yet highly resistant properties and employed in automotive and aeronautic industries. The difference that Starck makes is that the frames use fiber models and bio-based acetate, the latter of which is 67% made from renewable resources. As a bonus, chopped carbon fiber creates a random pattern that adds some character to the minimalist frames.

The material meets the designer’s vision of using science and technology to minimize waste by actually using fewer materials. This design philosophy is perhaps best expressed by Philippe Starck himself. “Technology is one of the greatest symptoms of human intelligence. Even when we use the highest technologies, we are still working as craftsmen. This is my definition of Honesty.”

The eyeglasses also take inspiration from the human shoulder in order to deliver the comfort and flexibility that escapes most eyewear. Dubbing it BIOLINK, the mechanism offers 360-degree multidirectional freedom of movement, just like human shoulders, for a comfortable fit, no matter the wearer’s head shape or preferences. There is also a SPHERE type of eyewear with a screw-less articulation that makes the movement feel more organic and reduces the overall weight of the frame.

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