Being legally blind is like living your whole life in a blur. This condition hinders the capability of a person to live life to its full extent, seeing as vision plays a highly important role in everyday living. Jeff Regan, a 48-year-old Canadian engineer, has been struggling with underdeveloped optic nerves until he wore this odd-looking technological visor developed by Toronto company, eSight.
The visor allowed Regan to read a newspaper, see faces from across the room and so much more. He’s also been able to go to plays knowing what’s going on onstage, fully grasping the thought. “These glasses have made my life so much better,” he exclaimed.
Source: eSight
The glasses may sound miraculous, but what it does is transmit images from a camera in front to small internal screens that cover each eye. The video feed is then transmitted in a way that it covers the wearer’s peripheral vision. For people with legal blindness, that’s all they need to see what they need to see, since a lot of visual impairments affect central vision while their peripherals still function normally. While the technology won’t help people who are totally blind, there’s still a lot of people that could benefit from technology, especially those who can’t be helped by regular lenses anymore.
Source: eSight
While it may seem that eSight is the perfect solution, there’s still some work that needs to be done. It may sound like an effective tool to aid with vision, it doesn’t help that there’s still no evidence proving their use. As of right now, the headset is at the same risk category as dental floss, which the company is trying to overcome by funding clinical trials. Because of that, the price tag is so high that it’ll make your eyes burn. Just recently, the glasses sell for about USD 10,000, and the version before that at USD 15,000. For people who can’t get high-paying jobs because of their vision, that’s way too high.
Source: eSight
Insurers also don’t cover the costs, as they see the glasses as similar to hearing aids. This is what the company is currently trying to fix. Brian Mech, eSight CEO, claims that the new upgrades of the recent model might make the picture clearer for insurers. He argues that it’s better for them to pay for the headsets than to cover the costs of the more expensive surgical procedures like laser surgery.
Source:
