Google Working on Smart Contact Lenses
- 10 years ago
Google is working on creating more technology enabled eye gear, but this time it’s for health reasons.
Google is working on creating more technology enabled eye gear, but this time it’s for health reasons.
The company’s Google X unit, the one that came up with Google Glass and a driverless car, is working on a contact lens that can check glucose levels in diabetics.
If they’re successful, that would mean no more drawing blood from fingers, as the lenses can do the monitoring.
Among the bigger challenges the project faced was developing a technology sensitive enough to detect glucose levels in tears, a challenge in part because they are hard to collect and measure.
In response to that limitation, the team developed tiny electronics. The chips are no bigger than the head of a pin and the antennae are thinner than thread.
To create the trial pairs, the sensors were secured between two soft lenses.
In tests, the prototype was successful, being able to measure blood sugar levels once every second.
The next phase in their development is the addition of LEDs that will blink when the lenses indicate that the levels are either too high or low.
Google is currently running more tests and discussing the lenses with the US Food and Drug Administration.
Google is working on creating more technology enabled eye gear, but this time it’s for health reasons.
The company’s Google X unit, the one that came up with Google Glass and a driverless car, is working on a contact lens that can check glucose levels in diabetics.
If they’re successful, that would mean no more drawing blood from fingers, as the lenses can do the monitoring.
Among the bigger challenges the project faced was developing a technology sensitive enough to detect glucose levels in tears, a challenge in part because they are hard to collect and measure.
In response to that limitation, the team developed tiny electronics. The chips are no bigger than the head of a pin and the antennae are thinner than thread.
To create the trial pairs, the sensors were secured between two soft lenses.
In tests, the prototype was successful, being able to measure blood sugar levels once every second.
The next phase in their development is the addition of LEDs that will blink when the lenses indicate that the levels are either too high or low.
Google is currently running more tests and discussing the lenses with the US Food and Drug Administration.