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Comment by ryanmercer | Hacker News Reader

I legitimately can not see a valid use for 'smart contacts', unless there is some sort of semi-valid medical application (some sort of sensor/monitor). Also, if these are getting data wireless... not sure how I feel about a transmitter right on my eyeball, high power broadcasts can cause cataracts fast, presumably low ones over extended periods would too.

"But soliders could use them for"

Soldiers wouldn't wear contacts, contacts are a pain in duty/hot/cold areas and you aren't going to want mission-critical equipment to fold up/get something on it/fall out. Same goes for police, fire fighters, those working in manufacturing facilities etc.

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I think the idea is to do better than glasses for AR (less obtrusive), which is what the market currently is selling. Of course there are plenty of cons — you’ll have to wear something to get data to it somehow, losing one is an expensive proposition, and people who don’t wear glasses already likely won’t go for contacts.

“not sure how I feel about a transmitter right on my eyeball, high power broadcasts can cause cataracts fast, presumably low ones over extended periods would too.”

Where is this data? And what assumptions are you making?

>Where is this data? And what assumptions are you making?

RF causes things like cataracts, this is well established medical fact.

>When RF waves are focused on the eye, it can cause cataracts to form.

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/radiation-exposu...

Also:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bem.10117

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3526913/

http://medcraveonline.com/MOJS/MOJS-02-00007.pdf

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/200600...

Etc.

Even 30 minutes of high exposure can cause a cataract to form, so placing a radio source directly on your eyeball, that is transmitting day in and day out for as many as 16 hours a day, is likely going to cause some sort of issue.

And God forbid one of these capacitors fails and discharges instantaneously.

Contacts for astigmatism that can automatically adjust orientation through an active (powered) mechanism would be game changing for the afflicted. Current passive orientating contacts for astigmatism are severely limited.

>Current passive orientating contacts for astigmatism are severely limited.

I have severe astigmatism, have worn contacts (when seasonal allergies aren't horrible) for almost 20 years. Never had an issue that I would even remotely describe as 'severely limiting'. Have I had to blink a few times occasionally to get a contact that's gone a little wonky to correct, yes, but that doesn't justify the incredible cost that some sort of automatically adjusting (probably with some incredibly tiny gyros?) contact would cost. If such a thing were even possible.

You may be an outlier. Personally, I’ve tried a number of different brands and haven’t found one that’s consistent enough for me to get through even a half day of work let alone an hour without at least one occurrence of both contacts rotating out of place at once.

I think I’m not alone because the handful of folks I know with contacts for astigmatism have reported similar issues. Additionally, Reddit is full of similar complaints.

It’s possible that these are all unusual cases. I’ll try to track down a more objective way to review contact lens satisfaction for users with astigmatism later when I get a chance.

There are people (not me) who want smart glasses, and there are also people (not me) who choose regular contact lenses over regular glasses. It's literally the conjunction of 2 existing use cases?

Any functionality the contact lenses would have would be minimal, not to mention they'd have extremely short battery life and as I said in my original comment I don't think wirelessly transmitting to and from your eye is going to be good for eye health, RF in sufficient strength can very quickly cause cataracts so even some low power transmission, a fraction of a mm off the surface of the eye, is probably going to be bad bad bad in the long run.

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