Augmented Reality

Augmented reality displays are only ayear or two away (at most) and we already know that Oakley and Google are definitely releasing some. Find out after the break what on earth this means for optometry?

First a quick catch up for those less geek than myself. Augmented reality is a method of overlaying digital information on an image of the real world, all done in real time. So for instance on the iPhone there's an app called around me. This will show on your screen what is around you, but it does so by placing a display over the camera image.


The next evolution of this will be glasses which project the augmented display directly onto the retina. Googles version looks like the photo and is provisionally called Project Glass for now. The current scope seems to be more social data but I can definitely see scope for use in the consulting room as a method of displaying patient data...you'd never forget a patient's name again!

Alpha products/images of Project Glass (copyright Google)

It is safe to assume that projecting an image straight onto one eye's retina will cause a mild (at best) accommodative response and presumably a secondary vergence response.


Quite how this will be moderated is an unknown at the moment but I've reached out to Google and Oakley for more information.


What are you're thoughts on augmented reality glasses? How would you adjust your examination?