While Mark Zuckerberg promoted the latest Ray Ban smartlass from Meta from Meta Hyping and Apple in 2023 for his vision per mixed realityThe Finnish startup IXI has produced tacit high-tech specifications for more practical purposes.
The company, founded in 2021, was created in April from Stealth with 36 million USD for the commercialization of the world's first autofocus glasses. The prescription specifications promise to change the path visually lived around them.
“None of the tech giants repair the eyesight”, nIko Eiden, co -founder and CEO of IXI, said TNW in an interview. “You consider Smart Eyewear as a new portable platform for AI assistants or make film material for your social media feed, but but do not solve the actual visual problem. ”
Eiden speaks from experience. He spent 14 years at Nokia to develop imaging and augmented reality (AR), which laid the foundation for Microsoft's Hololens Headset. After that he was a co -founder of Varjo, Europe's Mixed Reality (XR) Kingpin.
The autofocus glasses from IXI is as slim as a regular frame. Credit: Ixi
However, Ixis glasses have no chic cameras, AI or VR functions. Instead, use a sensor with low performance that follows the movements of your eye. By issuing light impulses and measuring the reflections that bounce off your eye, the sensor can determine whether you look nearby, wide or somewhere in between.
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The glasses then send this information via electrical signals to the lentils, which consist of a thin layer of liquid crystal, which are pinched between two plastic layers. When an electric field is applied to the glass, the liquid crystals changes the structure so low as little, which means that they bend the light differently. As a result, the lens with a delay time of approx. 0.2 seconds after the autofocus on everything you look can enable autofocus.
“We are trying to advance the same change of step that has happened in cameras – from a firm focus to manual focus to automatic focus,” said Eiden.
With IXI, co -founder and CEO Niko Eiden make his next big tech challenge. Credit: Ixi
From static to dynamic
Ixi's autofocus glasses replace bifocals and progressive lenses. These glasses offer a visual correction for several distances such as reading and driving in a single lens. However, they only have limited usable zones with distortions on the edges and a narrow section for reading. This can make activities such as walking the stairs quite uncomfortable.
Due to the autofocus functions, IXI can offer a complete field of vision in the entire lens. And thanks to the electronics with low performance, the technology does not need a lot of space-sie in the context of a normal couple of specifications.
However, it is still in the company early. Ixi is still very much in F&E and has not yet set a start date for its first product. The company must also manage technical challenges in connection with transparency, nonsense and all -day employment to ensure that the product corresponds to or exceeds the optical clarity of conventional plastic glasses. It must also meet the strict medical requirements for prescription glasses.
Nevertheless, oaths are optimistic about traditional Glasses industry that, as he said, invests more in brands and design as an optics. If Ixi can interfere with this segment, it can be made for large profits.
The global glasses market reached $ 200 billion in 2024. It grows by 8-9% every year and shows no signs of stop. This is because the human eyesight is become worseA problem that scientists have associated with excessive screen time in connection with poor lighting conditions and inactive lifestyle indoors.
So it may not be a surprise that Ixi is not all alone in this room. The French startup Laclarée and Japan's Elcyo are also working on autofocus glasses, even though they have not yet published a product.
Armed with fresh funds, Ixi is now planning to improve research and development, to expand his team of 50 people and to move to a new headquarters with a specially built laboratory and clean room facilities. TThe company plans to hold the first live demos of its glasses later this year.
“From the static lens to dynamic lens … it is a natural development,” said Eiden. “Whether we or another company, someone will crack it.”
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