After watches, bracelets, headphones and glasses, contact lenses could be the indispensable connected product of the future. According to a study by the company Global Market Vision, the market for connected lenses will grow strongly by 2029. Several large companies are working on the topic, including Samsung, Google and Apple. It remains to be seen who comes first.
Google smart contact lenses
A recent study highlights one of the chestnut trees of new technologies: connected contact lenses. This study comes from the company Global Market Vision. She says that these types of products should see strong expansion in the near future. In fact, the authors of the document rely on a commercial arrival of contact lenses before 2029. Or within the next eight years.
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The study is based on various ongoing projects in large technology and medical companies. The study obviously names Samsung, Google and Apple, but also Sony and Sensimed. The presence of Samsung, Google and Apple in this list comes as no surprise. In fact, they have all filed patents related to smart contact lenses in the last decade. However, their respective projects did not always target the same use.
Connected contact lenses: a 10-year-old project at Google
The first connected contact lenses were born almost ten years ago. In fact, in 2014, Google Inc. (which later became Alphabet) announced that its subsidiary GoogleX (later simply X) developed the first smart lenses, the purpose of which is to measure sugar levels in tears in real time to help diabetics control their blood sugar without an invasive method.
A few months after presenting its project, Google signed an agreement with the Swiss group Novartis to make these bonded contact lenses. However, the two partners were never able to develop a marketable product. Why ? Because the studies said so Tears are not accurate enough to measure blood sugar and used in the treatment of diabetes. Some experts have even called the project unfeasible because tears, like sweat, are too susceptible to environmental influences such as heat or humidity.
You’ll have to wait until 2020 to hear back from Google and Novartis about the project. Two years ago, the pharmaceutical company claimed that it had made significant progress in developing these connected contact lenses and would be able to start testing them within five years. Either before 2025. At the same time, Google X has filed a new patent for a connected accessory that looks very similar to its original project. That’s promising.
Samsung, Sony and Apple are working on lenses for augmented reality
Let’s name three more projects whose field of application is not medical, but informative. It’s about presenting information in “augmented reality”, i.e. superimposed on real life. In 2016, Sony filed a patent for attached lenses that could theoretically display such information. In the same year, Samsung did the same. In 2021, a famous financial analyst claims that Apple is working on connected contact lenses to display augmented reality here too. Keep in mind that this has long been one of Apple’s “favorites”. On the other hand, this analyst estimates that Apple wouldn’t be ready until 2030.