Thomas Deneufbourg and Distroal glasses.
Technology is shattering the boundaries between our physical and digital worlds. Life, as we know it, will never be the same thanks to the increasing integration of devices employing augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and extended reality into our day-to-day lives.
Reflecting this shift, SILMO Paris in October dedicated an entire area to ‘Futurology’, where mivision Editor Melanie Kell discovered everything from concepts through to commercial realities that are shaping our modern existence. Here are a few of the standouts that were on show.
We all remember Google Glasses – wearable technology resembling ordinary glasses that were launched in 2013 with endless hype. These voice-controlled glasses provided access to information including text messages, emails, weather forecasts, and navigation directions via a small display positioned on the right-hand side of the frame. They could even capture video and photos from the wearer’s perspective. In the general market the Google Glass failed – due to price and limited functionality beyond what can be achieved via smart phones and smart watches, as well as privacy issues. Google Glasses were withdrawn from the market in early 2023, however they had captured our imagination.
EssilorLuxottica, along with a host of other innovators, stepped in to fill the void, eager to make smart glasses even smarter and more accessible. And it looks like they have succeeded.
The creation of Ray-Ban Meta – a collaboration between EssilorLuxottica and Meta platforms (formerly named Facebook) – started “with the idea to put together smart glasses that can fit into everyday life for everyone”, Nieves Rojas, EssilorLuxottica’s Category and Project Marketing Manager Eyewear explained. The idea was “to free people from their screens, from always being on their mobiles, and allow them to live their moment… kind of a non-compromise (that) integrates technology into a device that is already part of your everyday life because it’s sitting on your face”.
In this day of constant live broadcasting, blogging, and sharing on socials, Ray-Ban Meta is bound for success.
Launching at SILMO Paris – and taking out the SILMO d’Or Technological Innovation award for 2024 – was the latest iteration, Ray-Ban Meta AI, which integrates artificial intelligence (AI), music, video, and photography. I tried the new frame on at SILMO for the first time and, to test it out, asked Meta for a list of recommended Sydney restaurants. I was impressed with the results. The response was highly relevant (a list of high-profile suggestions categorised by cuisine). The quality of sound was exceptional, and unlike wearing headphones or earbuds, I could still hear my surrounding environment. As Ms Rojas pointed out, this is useful for her as she rides her bike through the chaotic streets of Paris every day; she can listen to music, take calls and still be very much aware of what’s happening on the paths and roads around her.
In this day of constant live broadcasting, blogging, and sharing on socials, Ray-Ban Meta is bound for success. With a tap to the temple, I filmed my interview with Ms Rojas by simply looking directly at her. A light on the face of the frame alerted her to the video being recorded, and we ran a play back on an iPad immediately after. Ms Rojas told me that EssilorLuxottica has established a partnership with an app called Be My Eyes. In the future this will be integrated into Ray-Ban Meta to provide sighted assistance for people with vision impairment and blindness.
Outside the Futurology area, I met Trevor Hughes, a key account manager for Revo who was introducing the market to Revo’s third iteration of its smart glasses, Sonic Three. This new high specification Bluetooth-enabled frame is controlled via the temple, and enables wearers to listen to music, make and answer phone calls, and even has an embedded fitness/health tracker app.
To recharge the glasses, the temple is simply decoupled from the frame face and connected to the magnetised USB charging device. Revo’s patented polarised lenses come standard.
Expanding the Smart Platform
Whereas much of the technology used for smart frames is installed in the front end of the temples, Xocchiali is developing Bluetooth-enabled technology that can be integrated into the temple ends of optical and sunglass frames. And rather than creating their own eyewear, the founders of this Swedish start-up are planning to sell their technology to other frame designers, brands, and manufacturers.
By integrating the battery and speaker into the temple ends, founder Paul Johansson said the aim is to provide functionality without the showiness that comes from incorporating technology into the frame face or most visible parts of the temples. This gives designers much more freedom in all design aspects in front of the ears.
Mr Johansson is no newcomer to this kind of technology – he and his colleagues have worked in the mobile and ‘smart wearable’ industry since the early 2000s, and their experience and expertise shows. “We are interested in technology that is useful. We are not interested in technology that is a show off,” Mr Johansson explained. “The (eyewear) design is the most important thing and the technology should be unobtrusive, it should be useful.”
Xocchiali technology is for the essentials: It can be used to listen to navigation directions, take calls, and receive messages and notifications from apps. To minimise distractions, the user selects the apps and people it wants to receive notifications from and can colour code alerts from each. For example, if a call comes in from a family member, you can answer and talk directly through the eyewear without needing to pick up your phone. Of course, in the future, the applications are endless.
“The whole focus is around the usefulness; if you get messages all the time, it stops being useful and you get rid of it… you don’t want another distraction. You want something to help,” Mr Johansson said.
Xocchiali’s iOS/android mobile app for eyewear can be brand customised.
… you don’t want another distraction. You want something to help
Layer Upon Layer
Cocoon XR sits at “at the crossroads of traditional eyewear and extended reality technologies” paving the way for a modular “new class of optical products” that will redefine the way we see, interact, and immerse ourselves in the environment. In its simplest form, Cocoon XR looks just like a pair of glasses and can be fitted with the wearer’s prescription lenses. There are two integrated cameras on the glasses front (one on each side), that are guided by contextual AI and
can be switched to photo/video mode. An open speaker delivers simple audio messages and sound enhancement.
Cocoon XR can be added to with a clip-on extended reality/virtual reality mask that enables the wearer to switch between AR, VR, and the natural environment to become the wearer’s personal assistant, providing “context sensitive advice, reminders or relevant information”. And finally, earphones can be connected to the temples to either amplify surrounding sound or cancel it out if the wearer wants to be immersed in the AR/VR mode.
Focus on Health and Wellbeing
When we’re working or socialising in noisy environments, for example, it can be difficult to focus in on one source of audio, most notably one voice, particularly for older people and even middle-aged people who, by nature’s forces, are also becoming presbyopic.
Motivated by watching their grandparents struggle to participate in family conversations, Pulse Audition founders Thibaud Moufle-Milot and Manuel Pariente have spent over seven years researching to find a solution. Using AI, they’ve been able to separate a voice from the surrounding noise in real time and they’ve worked out how to embed the required technology into eyewear that can also be fitted with prescription lenses.
Dr Claire Richards, Product Owner at Pulse Audition, explained that a prescription frame is aesthetically, ergonomically, and technically more suited to purpose that hearing aids.
“Unfortunately, hearing aids are still associated with old age and many people are reluctant to begin wearing them because of this stigma,” Dr Richards told me.
To separate the desired voice from the surrounding environment, the wearer simply focusses on the person they wish to listen to. Within their optical frame there is ample space to integrate chips with the required processing power to run the AI algorithms that do this. There is also space to position microphones at the bridge and along the temples, where sound is most likely to come from (as opposed to behind the ears in the case of hearing aids).
Currently, Pulse Audition is working to miniaturise the technology that it has developed and aims to move into production within the next year.
Next Gen Innovation
From Arts et Métiers – a leading French engineering educational institution and incubator – came VizioSim, an “awareness tool” or connected mask that virtually simulates three visual impairments: blurred vision, central scotoma, and tunnel vision. By altering contrast, lighting etc, the wearer of VizioSim can experience each visual impairment in different environments.
There are two purposes for this VR mask: to educate sighted users about the difficulties visually impaired people encounter during everyday activities, and to demonstrate how simply an environment can be adapted to meet the needs of a person with vision impairment without being problematic for others using the same space.
This technology was complemented by a raft of innovations entered into SILMO’s Optical Design Contest by students of design, who are at a level equivalent to or higher than the third-year post-baccalaureate. Launched two years ago, this year’s contest was judged by Olivier Jault, a graduate of the ESAA Duperré fashion school, and now a renowned accessories designer, teacher, and curator.
Among the entries was Rhoe – a device designed to fit on the bridge of the nose, and continuously deposit an eye serum into the corner of the eye to help prevent symptoms of dry eyes, eye fatigue, and certain airborne allergies. With its fine tubes delivering minute doses, the device is active for 10 hours and refilled via a 6 ml reservoir. Rhoe is comfortably held in place by soft silicone pads that sit neatly under the nose bridge of an optical frame.
Students Thomas Deneufbourg and Adrien Gallois, from the École de Design Nantes Atlantique, won the Optical Design award with Distroal, glasses designed to support users with specific needs, including people on the autism spectrum and with anxiety. Distroal means ‘calming’ in the Breton language, spoken in Brittany, part of modern-day France.
By altering contrast, lighting etc, the wearer of VizioSim can experience each visual impairment in different environments.
Personalising the Fit
Visages is an artisanal French digital eyewear company that has developed a 3D scanning algorithm, enhanced by AI, enabling frames to be 3D printed to perfectly fit the wearer’s face.
Founded by Marc Junior Zouari, the Visages platform can be used by any eyewear brand to offer their own customised 3D printed glasses.
Optometry practices simply carry a sample of the brand’s physical products ready for patients to try on.
To order the selected frame, the eye care professional uses the Visages app on their smartphone to scan the patient’s face and pupillary height, automatically collecting all the morphological and optical measurements with precision to the 10th of a millimetre.
Then they “order the right colour, the right finish the patient wants, and then we print to order, with the fit guaranteed”, Mr Zouari told me.
“So, it’s really a revolution in terms of the amount of data we get, the quality of data we get with these devices, with our smartphone and tablets… we basically enable brands to create eyewear collections and benefit from a whole ecosystem of our technology.”
Visages works with resins, bioplastics, and titanium. With every frame made to order, the aim is to achieve zero waste and for there to be no left over stock at the end of each season.
Another innovator demonstrating its 3D prowess at SILMO was Oomade – winner of the SILMO d’Or award for Technological Innovation in Eyewear.
Oomade has reinvented the concept of “courtesy frames”. This complete solution – patented software and a 3D printing machine – can be positioned on the floor of a practice enabling frame repairs to be carried out on the spot and in front of the customer. Designed by an eye care professional, the technology is even capable of making an entire pair of glasses with a single vision lens, providing emergency vision for patients in the event their glasses are lost or need to be sent off for repair.
With so many promising technologies in production or in the pipeline, the future for optometry is exciting and a digitally integrated world for wearers of eyewear is no longer a distant dream.
