Newsletter
Wearables have the potential to become the next big thing in the world of technology, but in order for that to happen companies have to think outside the box. You see, companies like LG and Apple are currently dumping all of their time and money into developing smartwatches when they should instead, be trying to create completely new wearable devices. A good example of a company doing just that is Google with their “smart contact lens.”
A while ago, Google took the curtain off of a pretty exciting new type of wearable that they were working on, a smart contact lens. This contact lens would measure the user’s blood sugar levels via their tears and then feed that information back to the user through an app on their smartphone. What allows the contact lens to do this is a very low-power microchip combined with some extremely thin circuitry, both embedded into the lens itself. As you can probably imagine, the medical implications for a wearable device such as this are virtually limitless.
Don’t get too excited just yet though, Google doesn’t have plans to release the smart contact lens anytime soon. Originally Google said that they planned to launch their smart contact lens in 5 years, but now it looks like people might not have to wait quite that long. What is leading some people to believe this, is a new patent that was published today by Google. Said patent details potential packaging for a consumer version of the smart contact lens. Sure, Google has already been granted about 44 patents pertaining to their smart contact lens, but this patent, in particular, is for the packaging. This could mean that Google is already looking into a retail release of the wearable in the near future or on the other hand it could mean absolutely nothing. It’s really hard to make predictions about products from patents because companies, especially technology-focused ones, file for a plethora of them.
Regardless of what this new patent from Google means, it shows that the search giant is moving forward with their smart contact lens. This is very exciting for regular consumers, but for those whom this device could help medically, this is fantastic news. Now just keep your eyes and ears peeled to see if anything significant comes from this new patent.