They look like any ordinary pair of glasses. They are anything but that. "This has what we call the wow factor," said Dr. Mac Scothorn, an optometrist with Vistar Eye Center in Roanoke.
He's talking about something called Empower glasses, developed by a company in Roanoke County, PixelOptics at Valley Pointe.
One person who is wowed by the Empower glasses is Dr. Wayne Brackenrich. He's a family physician who has been wearing his new glasses for ten days now.
"I'm a sports person and I'm a physician and I need to see things up close and far away at the same time," Dr. Brackenrich said. Like many people bifocals and progressive contact lenses just weren't working for him. That's why he decided to give the Empower glasses a try.
" It works really well and what I want to do and the things I do in my everyday life," Dr. Brackenrich said. "I watched the big football game last night and I had my iPad doing my paperwork. I could see the TV perfectly with no distortion and I could look down and read my iPad in the smallest print so I can go up and down."
The lens were developed by PixelOptics in Roanoke County and are being rolled out in eye care centers nationwide in the next few months. PixelOptics employs about 80 people at its Valley Pointe location off Peters Creek Road.
The lens change when a person moves his or her head up or down by 15 degrees That allows a person to see things far away, at an intermediate range and close up. It's done with a technology that uses liquid crystals in the lens that change with electrocity.
Perhaps another another big benefit is that patients won't have blurry vision while walking down the stairs, something that's common with traditional bifocal lenses and even with progressive lenses.
"You're in control of your vision. Instead of you l having to adapt to the lenses, the lenses adapt to you," said Dr. Scothorn.
The Empower glasses cost about $1,200 and because they are so new and considered an electronic device insurance is not yet covering them. You do need a prescription for the glasses. They run on a battery that has to be charged at night.
You charge them just like you would a cell phone or an iPad, said Paul Reaves an Optician with Vistar.
People in the eye industry say this technology could revolutionize eye care in the same way as smart phones and iPads.
"I think they've set the bar and I think this is where we're going to be." said Dr. Scothorn.
