Researchers develop contact lens that zooms in and out with wink of eye

The latest version of a first-of-its-kind telescopic contact lens allows the wearer to zoom in and out with the wink of an eye, according to researchers.

The lenses pair with smart glasses that recognise winks and ignore blinks to allow wearers to switch between normal and magnified vision, say reports.

According to Optics specialist Eric Tremblay from Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, the researchers believe the lenses held a lot of promise for low vision and age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

People with AMD could use glasses available in the market that had mounted telescopes, but they tended to look bulky and interfered with social interaction. They also did not track eye movement, so users had to position their eyes and tilt their head to use them.

The lenses worked by incorporating a very thin reflective telescope inside a 1.55mm thick lens and using small mirrors to expand the perceived size of objects and magnify the view, like looking through low magnification binoculars.

The development was funded by the Pentagon's main research arm DARPA. The lenses were originally meant to offer bionic vision for soldiers.

Though Tremblay stressed that the device was still at the research stage, he was hopeful it could eventually become a "real option" for people with AMD. It was very important and hard to strike a balance between function and the social costs of wearing any kind of bulky visual device, he said.

There was a strong need for something more integrated and a contact lens was an attractive direction, he added.

According to the research team, which included the researchers from the University of California, San Diego as also experts at Paragon Vision Sciences, Innovega, Pacific Sciences and Engineering, and Rockwell Collins, the product was "a huge leap" forward, compared to glasses already on the market for people with AMD.

Older models require the user to tilt his head and position the eyes just right in order to use them. The latest version marks an advance as it actually tracked eye movement, making them easier to use.