👓 Glasses: A Thing of the Past?
Leave your spectacles behind in 2021. 2022 promises to be the year of 20/20 vision.
Glasses.
Those of us who wear glasses know that we have a love/hate relationship with them.
Yes, they allow us to see better but they also make life so much more difficult.Â
Want to watch a 3D movie? Handling two pairs of glasses is a nightmare!
Want to wear a mask or drink a hot beverage? Hello, foggy vision.
But unless you didn't want to wear lenses every day or undergo LASIK surgery, you had to tolerate glasses and all their tantrums.
Yes, had to. Not anymore.Â
A revolutionary new treatment has the potential to completely disrupt the global eyewear industry which is worth $139.9B. Wondering how?
A Brand New Vision
A US-based company called Allergan has introduced revolutionary new eye-drops called Vuity, that can correct vision. Yes, for 12 hours a day, people who have age-related vision problems can see even without their glasses.Â
Umm, how?
These eye drops reduce the size of your pupil, allowing people who have age-related blurriness or presbyopia (~2.11 billion) to see better.
So, bye-bye reading glasses.
But, wait. Are these drops safe? Yes, they have been approved by the US FDA.Â
And are they affordable?
Well, they are a bit more expensive than glasses. One month's supply would cost you $80 (Rs. 6,000).
But that's because the drug is new and revolutionary. If other companies also introduce similar drops (which they surely will), there is a high chance that these drops will become almost as cheap as a pair of glasses. That's the beauty of competition and capitalism.
Okay, that's great news for the oldies. But what about the rest of us who have farsightedness and other eye-related issues?
Don't worry! The Bar-Ilan University's Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (BINA) is working on eye-drops, called Nano-Drops, that will be the one cure for all eye-related problems.Â
The drops will change how the light enters your eye to solve your eye-related issues. So, it's basically surgery in a bottle. Plus, you wouldn't have to use these drops every day. Just once every 2-3 months.
The drops have shown great promise in animal trials and human trials will begin soon.
But that's not all. Vision problems are on the rise thanks to us spending our lives in front of screens. So, tech only is trying to solve the problem that it has created by trying to identify and correct issues before they become problems.
What a time to live in, right?Â
Now, all this may sound great to us. But this is bad news for eyewear companies. With these new developments, glasses may soon become obsolete.Â
So, will eyewear companies have to shut shop?
Not if they're smart.Â
ReadOn Insights
Firstly, most eyewear companies also sell sunglasses and other decorative frames. The demand for this will probably not die down anytime soon.
And secondly, even though prescription glasses are dying down, a new category of glasses is now emerging: VR and AR glasses.Â
Companies like Meta and Microsoft want to make the metaverse a household phenomenon. And if they succeed, everybody will need glasses, not just us visually-challenged people. So, if eyewear companies strategically collaborate with tech companies to develop these glasses, they could be even more profitable than they are now!
But even in this endeavour, eyewear companies will be facing strong competition as companies like Meta and Apple are also entering this arena.
Do you think eyewear companies will become obsolete in the future? Let us know in the comments.
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