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Vixion’s autofocus eyeglasses: Relax your eye muscles all day

Vixion’s autofocus eyeglasses: Relax your eye muscles all day

Vixion01: eyeglasses with built-in autofocus, so you can relax your eyes and still see things sharply between a couple of inches away and infinity.  Vixion  View 4 Images –

By Loz Blain
2024 Jan 08
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The lenses in our eyes stiffen as we age, making it harder to switch focus between different distances. But autofocus systems are now getting so compact and efficient that they fit in a set of glasses – provided you don’t mind looking a bit dorky.

Vixion – a subsidiary of Japanese optics giant Hoya – is demoing its Vixion01 “autofocus eyewear” at CES in Las Vegas. The idea is simple enough – a built-in time-of-flight depth sensor works out the distance between you and whatever’s in your center of view, then adjusts the shape of two small lenses so that you effectively never have to use your eye muscles to shift focus.

Whatever it is you want to see clearly, you point your head at it, and hey presto, it’s lookin’ sharp – from a super-close 5 cm (2 inches) away to infinity.

Setup seems quick as well. Adjust the nose pads to fit your face, slide the lenses back and forth to match your eye width and position, then adjust a diopter for each eye, to account for each eye’s own focal peculiarities. This makes them a relatively quick and easy gadget to share around, perhaps among teams that might need to have various members examining things very closely throughout the day.

They even look like they’ve got eyeballs.  Vixion
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They weigh 55 grams (1.9 oz), and are totally self-contained, with a 10-hour battery, USB-C charging and a Bluetooth 5.0 connection whose purpose is a mystery to us.

We’ve seen the idea of autofocus-capable eyeglasses before – indeed, our own Mike Hanlon was reporting on prototypes no less than 18 years ago. But the Vixion01 glasses are a commercial product, packaged up and beginning to go into scale manufacturing. After a wildly successful crowdfunding campaign in Japan last year, units will start shipping within a few weeks.

Vixion has generously provided this candid photo of a non-supermodel wearing the glasses in a real-world situation – this is much closer to what most of us will look like.  Vixion
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They’re currently only available in Japan, mind you, at a very reasonable-sounding price of JP¥99,000 (~US$690) – but Vixion says it’s “poised to enter international markets,” and “actively seeking local partners for various business facets.”

Autofocus eyeglasses have the potential to save people a lot of headaches, particularly as we age. That doesn’t get us around the fact that these ones look exquisitely silly, perching out in front of your face like a Star Trek prop despite the ministrations of design firm Nendo.

We’d also question the possible consequences of wearing these things all day long – it seems reasonable to assume folks’ eye muscles will atrophy as they stop using them, which would make them more dependent on the tech. But technological dependence is something we’re becoming more and more comfortable with over time, and we can clearly see (yuk yuk) the appeal of this idea. Check out a video below.

ViXion01_Product Movie（English ver.）

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Source: Vixion  View gallery – 4 images
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Tags

Wearables Glasses CES 2024 focus Multi-focal Vision

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Loz Blain
Loz Blain
Loz has been one of our most versatile contributors since 2007, and has since proven himself as a photographer, videographer, presenter, producer and podcast engineer, as well as a senior features writer. Joining the team as a motorcycle specialist, he’s covered just about everything for New Atlas, concentrating lately on clean energy, AI, humanoid robotics, next-gen aircraft, and the odd bit of music and automotive.
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8 comments
Ric
This seems like the kind of crutch that would hasten the degradation of natural focusing abilities, if worn consistently.

RobC
For those of us already wearing trifocal lenses this could be extremely useful.

Enteleki
Ric, let’s not forget that wearing corrective lenses is an aid to seeing (a crutch) and also atrophies the muscles used in focusing. Granted, there would be less use of muscles with a lens making all adjustments, but that may be a trade-off I am willing to make. As I age, the span between the necessary adjustments to my static lenses, requiring a new pair of glasses, shortens. Every year I require a stronger correction than the last. Since it is vision in the near field that causes me to go to the eye doctor for new lenses, perhaps I use these new glasses for reading and screen work only and buy a pair of distance-vision traditional glasses for driving and such since this type of vision seems more stable. I welcome the option.

Ancliff
Forget degradation once you are past 50-60. There is no natural focusing ability any more. For us wrinklies this is terrific news. And I think they look great. Maybe not ideal for social gatherings admittedly!

White Rabbit
@Ric – I’m inclined to agree that this is a distinct possibility. For the first few decades that I wore glasses they featured lenses that darkened in response to bright light. They were great – except that they slipped when I perspired, fogged when I came in from the cold, required frequent cleaning, and all the other drawbacks that wearing glasses entails. So I finally explored contact lenses and most of those inconveniences disappeared. However, I found that my pupils were very slow to respond to sunlight, so I had to wear (sun)glasses anyway! My experience is, of course, anecdotal and not offered “proof” or even research. 🙂
@et alia – Reading your comments, I couldn’t help but notice a disconnect. I share your perspective in terms of age and some of your experience, but the photos in the article would seem to indicate that we are not the target market. Ric’s warning, then, might deserve more consideration by those who are.

Troublesh00ter
I can see where this development could be a real game changer for those with mostly spherical corrections, but whether it would help those with cylindrical adjustments to their vision is something of a question mark. Still, as someone who wears bifocals (and HATES progressive lenses!), I would be VERY interested in trying them!

Brian M
Interesting product, but you will still need your ordinary specs for some jobs, for example driving in a car or with a full face motorbike helmet on, the time of flight is likely to get that very wrong!
Or even worse for those of us who like to view our pose in front of a mirror!
Does it correct for a stack of other eye issues such as astigmatism? Think there is still a future for the typical varifocal lens.
Better still you don’t have to plug them in nor look quite as dorky or maybe that is cool!

ScienceFan
A lot of enthusiasm but has no one noticed the narrow field of view? Not that everything needs to be in focus but you don’t want to block part of your field of view. The dark ring seems to do that quite a bit.
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