User-Adjustable Glasses

DrLudicrous writes "An Oxford University professor has come up with a way to manufacture adjustable glasses. The lens is made up of silicone oil, which when added or removed changes the curvature, and thus the strength of the lens. Apparently, these are inexpensive enough to distribute to the poor people's of rural Ghana, who do not have the opportunity to see a doctor, let alone afford conventional glasses."

Comments

Donate.

[Trusty Penfold]

Don't forget to donate your old glasses to charity as well!

Re:Donate.

[stefanlasiewski]

The eyeglass donation places will be able to make good use of your frames.

The lenses are often discarded , since few people have the exact same vision.

Thats funny...

[Izanagi]

I swear I saw these 6 years ago.
hmmm...

"Silver started his own company, called Adaptive Eyecare in 1996 to manufacture and market the glasses."
-Seeing Is Believing

Re:Eye problems

[JSCarr]

Yes, it's very possible to cause harm to your vision by wearing glasses that are either too strong or too weak. Any optometrist will tell you that the drugstore rack reading glasses should be banned. Another less obvious hazard is the quality of the materials often used to make these glasses. The cheap ones really do not have shatter-proof lenses. Not a good thing.

I love this idea!

[Simon Field]

First, I love the idea of giving glasses to people who can't afford them. Often the reason they can't afford them is that without good eyesight they can't make a better living.

I also love the idea of adjustable eyesight. This is what the eye is designed to do naturally. The lens in your eye is adjustable until you reach my age. Just not adjustable enough.

I love the idea of letting people fix problems themselves without expensive professionals. The idiot in the article who complained that the people need to see an optometrist in case there is something worse wrong with the guy is being atrociously patronizing. When I cut my finger I don't go to a doctor in case I might also have cancer.

Being in charge of the adjustment means that if I get it wrong, I can fix it right away. How many of us have had to go back to the optometrist to get new glasses because they got the prescription wrong the first time? Or how many of us just put up with bad correction and only discovered the problem when the next pair of glasses fixed it?

But I also love the idea because of the other things we can do with these glasses once they become widely available. Get two pair, and have adjustable binoculars (just separate the two by a few inches). Or have cheap adjustable focus for small telescopes or microscopes. Or lightweight autofocus cameras.

Suppose the adjustment was really fast and easy. Now your regular glasses can be reading glasses with a touch to your temple.

I love this idea.

Re:Eye problems

[Simon Field]

Just what mechanism are you proposing for this damage?

If what you say were true, then bifocal lenses would also damage your eyesight. Or simply taking off your glasses would damage your eyesight.

Don't be silly. There is no harm in the drugstore reading glasses, any more than there is in using a magnifying glass to read. All they do is make the image you see appear as if the object were closer to you. If that can damage your eyesight, then don't ever look at things too closely.

As for shatter-proof reading glasses, while they might be a good idea, I generally don't engage in the kind of activity that would shatter my glasses while I am reading.

Several Misgivings

[Tsar]

I agree with these gentlemen:

But not everyone embraces the idea. "They will prevent some people from coming to the hospital, where we might discover more serious problems," said Dr. Samuel Asiedu, general secretary of the Ghana Optometrists Association. Dr. Ababio-Danso, the ophthalmologist in Agogo, also notes that many Ghanaians are unfamiliar with glasses and do not know how to care for them or clean them.

Also, I was dumbfounded by this quote:

Nor is it clear how durable the glasses will be, or how long they will retain their prescriptive power, since the oils or the shape may deteriorate over time.

Reading from the company's website: "The company was founded by Oxford physics professor Joshua Silver in 1996 and is based in Oxford and London. The company has developed prototype adaptive spectacles that can correct both far-sighted and near-sighted people, and these spectacles have been trialled in several countries in Africa and Asia."

In six years of operation, and after testing in several countries, how would they still be unsure of their products' durability or focus-holding ability?

Re:Eye problems

[Simon Field]

You are talking about eyestrain.
The thread was talking about eye damage, which is an entirely different thing.

People who need reading glasses are mostly those of use whose natural lens is no longer flexible enough to refocus well, due to age. Without any reading glasses, we would be under eyestrain conditions all the time, since we would be trying to focus the natural lens by muscle power, and it can't flex enough.

With reading glasses, I can focus on something close up, and I can take them off to see far away. People with bifocals do this by lifting their head, and yet I don't see people arguing that bifocals cause eye damage.

Reading glasses don't cause eyestrain. They prevent it.

Your point about glasses that are too strong is right on the mark, and argues my case that people should be able to adjust their lenses without a doctor visit. If you bought the wrong reading glasses at the drug store, return them for the right ones.

Or just turn the screw on the adjustable version.