A smart contact lens does seem like the logical evolution of eye-mounted wearable gadgets — why look like a weirdo with Google Glass on your face when you can do everything on the sly? And while Google’s new Smart Contact Lens doesn’t exactly come with Glass’ functionality (cramming that much hardware into a piece of plastic that fits over your cornea probably isn’t feasible at this point in time), it does provide a glimpse into smart eyewear’s potential future.
Aimed at diabetics, the contact lens allows wearers to constantly monitor their glucose levels. It can take as frequent as one reading per second, ensuring users get up-to-date information that can prove crucial to their well-being.
The Google Smart Contact Lens performs its feat using a wireless chip and a miniature glucose sensor that takes it measurements from your tears, with the electronics sandwiched between two soft layers of lens material. They’re also looking to add equally tiny LEDs down the line, which will alert users when their glucose levels reach specific thresholds. The electronics used in the lenses are so small, they look like tiny specks of glitter, so they’re not that intimidating to put on either.
Made by Google’s experimental Google X labs, the Smart Contact Lens is currently in the prototype stage. They are, however, progressing quite well, having conducted multiple clinical experiments, along with having ongoing discussions with the FDA about the potential of bringing it to market. Yeah, it’s going to be a brave new world soon.