Autofocus glasses – a concept for the future?

Autofocus. Glasses. These are two buzzwords that are turning heads. Several companies are currently working on a smart alternative to traditional progressive lenses. One of them is Finnish start-up IXI, which recently received a cash injection of US$36.5 million. One of the best-known investors is Amazon. MAFO spoke to one of the founders, Niko Eiden, about the potential of the glasses and the current challenges.

For Niko Eiden, the plan is set. If every cell phone camera works with autofocus, then glasses should too. Put them on, look through them, and everything is in focus at every distance. Across the entire field of vision. Without annoying image errors. That is the goal. During the interview, MAFO discovered how close the start-up has come to its goal so far. Unfortunately, it is not quite as simple as with a camera – but it is not impossible either.

IXI: A company awakens to life

In 2021, current CEO Niko Eiden and Chief Algorithm Officer Ville Miettinen founded IXI. Both founders come from the fields of augmented reality and virtual reality and already have experience starting companies. In 2016, the entrepreneurs launched the start-up Varjo, which today successfully offers solutions in the field of VR and XR technology and supplies astronauts, pilots, and nuclear power plant operators for instance.

In April, they ventured out of the shadows with IXI and officially announced that the start-up is working on autofocus prescription glasses. Various investors are investing a total of US$36.5 million in the Finnish start-up, part of which comes from the Amazon Alexa Fund.

In addition to the Finns, other companies are also working on smart alternatives to progressive lenses. MAFO has already reported on some of them, such as Morrow, DeepOptics, and Laclarée.

The IXI developers are currently keeping some details under wraps, such as when the product might be ready for market. However, MAFO was able to elicit some other information from founder Niko Eiden.

MAFO: Can you please explain how your smart glasses work?

Eiden: We want to create the same experience with glasses that you have with autofocus cameras. Therefore, we use tunable optics. Meaning, we have an electro-optical lens that we can control. It is not like a button press. It works automatically, and whatever you are looking at, you will get the right power.

Currently, we are working on the first generation of those glasses, based on liquid crystal lenses. We will have embedded our liquid crystal element in a traditional single-vision lens. The idea is to have a single-power experience: when you are looking far, you have the full view from the traditional lens, and for reading or computer work, you will have a very large field of view from the liquid crystal lens.

All the electronics and computing are happening in the front of the frame. In the temple is the battery but nothing else and the glasses should look like normal eyewear.

MAFO: Are the glasses connected to a smartphone?

Eiden: The product is connected to a smartphone, and you can do the configuration there. But you do not need a smartphone to turn the glasses on or off, and the glasses do not have any buttons. You just put them on, and they start to work.

But the product has lots of sensors, microcontrollers, a continuously running eye tracker, or a Bluetooth radio. Meaning, we can provide a lot of data from the health and wellness perspective when people wear our glasses. People can get insights and data about their usage on the smartphone, and all of this is in the smartphone application.

MAFO: What is the biggest challenge in the development phase?

Eiden: To have an eye tracker that works continuously with ultra-low power consumption, and to fit it into a frame that looks like any traditional frame. That is a very challenging concept overall to crack. You have to understand the context the person is looking at in order to figure out the distance. I give you an example: If I am looking at the corner of my laptop, it is not clear if I am looking at the corner or right next to the corner. Therefore, we tested many different eye tracking technologies.

Finally, we decided to use a technology based on the convergence of the eyes, as the majority of people converge the eyes when looking at close distance. We can then track the vector of both eyeballs continuously to calculate the distance to a specific object. Based on that, we drive the lens.

Another challenge is to create a large, tunable lens that is very lightweight and thin. We are creating a lens that has more stuff in it than a traditional eyewear lens, but on the other hand, we will be compared to existing eyewear lenses, from the perspective of transparency, haziness or optical quality.

And finally, we are aiming for glasses that are similar to existing eyewear in weight, size, or volume. The glasses have to fit ergonomically for the majority of people, for different nose shapes, head shapes, or eye heights. The glasses should be adjustable by opticians, and you can heat them, as we only have the tiny battery but no other technique in the temple.

And you know, very big brands are coming out with smart eyewear now, and this eyewear is absolutely not adjustable.

MAFO: Can you share some technical data about weight, battery running time and more? 

Eiden: We have a very tiny battery in the product, which is integrated in the temples. This allows a very nice form factor, which you can’t distinguish from traditional glasses. But this also means that the power consumption for the eye tracking and for the lens needs to be minimized. The idea is to have two days of battery operating time, but that means basically overnight charging. However, it will be impossible to do a product that would run for a week with an eye tracking system working continuously.

The eye tracker that we have built is already 50 to 100 times more power efficient than anything else out there on the market. The frame weight is the same as any plastic frame, and when you take the frame, you will not see any difference. Because we have embedded the electronics completely into the frame. Therefore, we don’t have more volume or weight.

MAFO: In which diopter range will the product be available later?

Eiden: I cannot go yet into the details because we have not yet made the final decision. But it is possible to have a sphere and cylinder with liquid crystal lenses.

MAFO: Will the glasses be safe to wear while driving?

Eiden: We don’t know yet what the optimal way is to do the car driving, but there are many ways to fix that. When talking about autofocus in the car, it needs to be superfast. Another option would be to have a fixed area for far, for driving glasses.

MAFO: What is the current state of development, and when will the product be ready for market?

Eiden: We have now four years existing, and this has been mainly R&D. In the past year, we have been transferring the company more towards the commercial side. We are now setting up production for the frames and for the lenses. That work is ongoing, and how fast we can progress will dictate the launch. However, we are not yet publishing the timing of the product.

MAFO: Currently, it appears that autofocus glasses may be relatively expensive. Also, due to the liquid crystal lenses. Will this product always be a high-end product?

Eiden: In the beginning, it will be a high-end product – but nothing extraordinary. In the end, it is a volume game like any consumer electronics. Once the volumes get up from an electrical component perspective, we have no specific or expensive components. And then the same goes for the liquid crystal production method that we’ve been developing. Once we get into volume, it will be possible to push down the pricing also on these types of products.

MAFO: How important is Amazon’s role as an investor for your success?

Eiden: Obviously, all the big tech companies are looking at eyewear currently as a new wearable platform, but all with different use cases. However, Amazon as an investor has been very helpful when we have discussions with large companies that will source materials, technology, or machinery. Having an investor like Amazon is always a good start in the discussions to get attention. But it is also true that the start-up industry has its own kind of superstars from the investor perspective. But if you go to a manufacturing company, they most likely have never heard of those.

MAFO: Can you already say how the product will be distributed?

Eiden: Probably, it will get distributed at normal opticians’ retailers. Of course, it’s always tempting to look at the market and start dreaming about direct consumer sales and online sales. But glasses are a very personal thing. Eyewear needs to fit and look good, and people want to try it out. At the moment, I don’t feel that we should fight that windmill. 

MAFO: What are your hopes for the introduction of autofocus smart glasses?

Eiden: When I talk to friends, who are all in the situation that they start to adapt to progressive eyewear, they all have their issues. And when I explain how we are fixing this problem, every single person is impressed and says that they have never seen something like that.

I am not sure if there is any other product or concept that would have a stronger pull from the market than that. We want to create a product that actually fixes a fundamental problem. And we feel that it is time to make people see better with the help of technology.

We also see other companies like DeepOptics, Morrow, and Laclarée trying to crack exactly the same problem. But on the other hand, we also see the huge tech companies. They bring technology into eyeglasses, but not for seeing things better. Those glasses are for recording content for social media or providing users with information. I feel we are very interesting in between – in a world with those giants.

MAFO: In your opinion, will we reach a point where autofocus glasses become as normal as any other type of glasses?

Eiden: It is hard to predict the future. But when looking at tunable optics, the first generation will have its limitations. But we are not very far from a point where you can pick a pair of glasses and tuning prescription by using your mobile app.

And when we reach this point, it will change everything, and it will become mainstream – whoever going to crack this issue. It will change the logistics, how glasses are being produced and how they are sold. Remember the camera example from manual to autofocus. Change often happens super-fast. Changing the whole way glasses are being built – that is our aim.

MAFO: Thank you for the interview.

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Niko Eiden is the co-founder and CEO of IXI. Having spent his earlier career at Nokia and Microsoft, he went on to co-found Varjo, the mixed reality company whose advanced VR technology is used by astronauts and pilots. At IXI, his experience in advanced optics and eye-tracking solutions inspired him to create a new kind of eyewear that truly solves the challenge of vision correction and liberates people from poor eyesight.