Samsung will probably pack cameras, movement sensors, a transmitter and a display unit into the smart contact lenses for an AR experience
Samsung was one of the early movers into Virtual Reality with its Gear VR and now, the South Korean electronics giant is getting into Augmented Reality. These smart contact lenses are interactive lenses which can send or receive data from a nearby phone. To click pictures or to interact with the data projected from the lens, the user has to blink. The users can also stream video or send images to their smart lenses from their smartphones.
Samsung is not the only one working on AR. A prototype of Microsoft Hololens is already available for developers. The concept of smart lenses is also under research by many companies. Google, in partnership with the Swiss pharmaceutical company, Novartis, announced smart contact lenses that could help diabetics by measuring blood glucose levels. Developments on this have not been released yet. In March 2016, the FDA approved Swiss healthcare start-up SENSIMED, to start testing smart lenses to understand the glaucoma disease. But Samsungs’ lenses are not for healthcare and it is exploring methods of integrating AR into today’s devices.
Samsung originally filed its ‘Gear Blink’ patent in 2014 but only in April 2016 did the South Korean authorities approve this. According to the blueprints, some circuits will be visible in the lenses but will be placed along the glass edge in order to avoid blocking the vision. It also includes details about the manufacturing process. Samsung has also filed for the ‘Gear Blink’ trademark in the US.
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