What do a camera and the future of glasses have in common? The answer lies in the lab of a Finnish startup that just raised $36 million from Amazon and other investors. IXI promises to do for our eyes what autofocus did for photography: eliminate the need for manual adjustments. Instead of having to move your head or change glasses, the lenses themselves will adjust in real time to the distance of the object you are observing.
Autofocus technology hidden in traditional-looking frames could finally free us from the compromises of progressive lenses and the discomfort of reading glasses—no small change.
The revolution starts with Nokia
Niko Eiden He is not a half-measures type. After spending 14 years in the legendary Nokia developing imaging and augmented reality technologies that then ended up in Microsoft HoloLens, co-founded Varjo, the European mixed reality company that supplies headsets to astronauts, pilots, and nuclear power plant operators. But one problem nagged at him: Why have our cameras had autofocus for decades, but our glasses don't?
Together with the partner ville miettinen, in 2021 created IXI with a seemingly impossible goal: to bring autofocus to glasses. Not the smart ones full of screens and sometimes useless features, but real eyeglasses that work exactly as our eyes should before age betrays us.
The idea was born out of a frustration shared by millions of people. Try to be precise while constantly switching between screens, from documents to phone, from street signs to dashboard instruments. With traditional progressive lenses, you have to constantly find the right area of the lens, tilt your head at the right angle, hope the lighting is adequate. With reading glasses, you have to take them off and put them back on every twenty seconds.
How Autofocus Works in Glasses
IXI's autofocus technology is sophisticated and invisible. Hidden in the frame are infrared sensors that constantly monitor your eye movements. Not through cameras (too bulky and energy-hungry), but by measuring your eye convergence: the angle at which your eyes orient themselves when looking at close objects.
When you look at something up close, your eyes slightly converge inward. IXI's sensors detect this movement and calculate exactly how far away you are looking. A microcontroller embedded in the bridge of the nose then sends electrical signals to the lenses, which are made of liquid crystals sandwiched between two layers of plastic.
Under the effect of the electric field, the liquid crystals change orientation, modifying the refractive index of the lens. The result is autofocus that occurs in just 0,2 seconds., as explained in detail by Amazon Science. It's the same principle as cameras, but applied directly to your eyes.
Goodbye compromises of progressive lenses
Progressive lenses were a great innovation when they first came along, but they remain a compromise. You only have a small area for reading, distortion at the edges, and that annoying feeling of having to “find” the right area for each distance. As we have highlighted when talking about the evolution of smart glasses, technology should simplify life, not complicate it.
IXI promises to eliminate all these problems. With autofocus, the entire surface of the lens adapts to the distance you are observing. No narrow zones, no peripheral distortions, no need to move your head to find the right point. The lens becomes dynamic, just as the human eye should be in ideal conditions.
From the outside, the IXI glasses look identical to a normal pair of lenses. Even the weight is comparable: the electronic components are so miniaturized that they are practically imperceptible. The battery, hidden in the temples, guarantees autonomy for two days.
The Challenge of World Presbyopia
It's not a niche problem. The presbyopia, the gradual loss of the ability to focus at close range, affects virtually everyone after age 40. According to the latest research, over a billion people worldwide suffer from presbyopia, and the number continues to grow as the population ages and we spend more time in front of screens.
Current solutions are all compromises. Reading glasses work well for near vision, but are useless for everything else. Bifocals have a clear dividing line and limited fields of vision. Progressives are better, but they require an adjustment period, and many people never fully adjust to them.
Bruno Berge, founder of the French startup Laclarée (an IXI competitor), estimates that about 10% of the population never adjusts to progressive lenses. For these people, autofocus could be a relief.
Liquid Crystals and Extreme Miniaturization
The real technical challenge was not to develop the autofocus, but to miniaturize it enough to fit into a normal mount. The liquid crystals used by IXI are similar to those in LCD screens, but optimized for optical correction rather than image display.
Each lens contains a layer of liquid crystals just 5 microns (5 millionths of a meter) thick, sandwiched between two layers of optical plastic. When an electric field is applied, the crystals change orientation, changing the way light is refracted. It is a completely silent and imperceptible process.
The eye tracking system is equally sophisticated. As mentioned, IXI has developed proprietary infrared sensors and consume less than 1% of the energy required by camera-based systems.
The company also had to develop its own manufacturing processes. Eiden explains that they created custom manufacturing machines and sophisticated laser etching processes to produce the lenses with the necessary precision.
The competition is making itself felt
IXI is not alone in this race. The Japanese Elcyo, a spin-off of Osaka University, is developing a similar technology with electrically changeable liquid crystals. The French company Laclarée, which I mentioned earlier, has also been working on autofocus glasses since 2016, although it has already postponed the launch to 2022 to 2026.
The difference is in the approach. While Elcyo uses sensors that directly detect the distance of objects, IXI focuses on eye movement. Laclarée uses a LIDAR system to calculate distances, but this requires bulkier components.
As we have seen with other smart glass projects, the key to success is not just the technology, but the ability to integrate it into a wearable format that is acceptable for everyday use.
Autofocus, Amazon Really Believes in It
Amazon support through theAlexa Fund it's not random. Paul Bernard, who leads the fund, said that “the idea of bringing on-demand vision correction to prescription glasses is compelling” and cited the clunkiness of current solutions as the primary motivation for the investment.
Amazon knows that the future of wearable computing is through devices that people actually want to wear. Previous attempts with Google Glass They failed precisely because they were too invasive and technologically obvious.
IXI represents the opposite approach: invisible technology in a familiar format. Eiden has a personal connection to Jeff Bezos from previous projects, which accelerated the investment decision, but the real reason is strategic.
Patents and Intellectual Property
IXI has invested heavily in intellectual property protection. In four years of development, the team has generated over 150 inventions, obtained 12 patents, and has another 50 patent applications under consideration.
It’s not just about protecting the technology, but about creating barriers to entry high enough to justify the investment needed for large-scale production. Eiden believes that even if someone could get a product like IXI’s, there would be “a lot of critical techniques to figure out to replicate it.”
This is crucial in an industry where tech giants may be tempted to copy promising innovations. IXI’s strategy is to build a technological and temporal advantage that is difficult to overcome.
The future of vision correction
If IXI succeeds, we could be witnessing the greatest revolution in vision correction since Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals in 1784. As reported by Focus, for more than 200 years the basic principles of corrective glasses have not changed significantly.
Autofocus could go beyond just correcting presbyopia. Eiden imagines a future where lenses can dynamically adapt throughout the day, compensating for eye fatigue or changes in lighting. They could also automatically correct small vision errors or adapt to particular conditions such as night driving.
IXI’s roadmap calls for functional prototypes by the end of 2025 and commercialization in 2026. Pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but considering the $36 million in funding and the technological complexity, they probably won’t be cheap. At least initially.
I'm sure of it: autofocus will be the future
IXI's approach convinces me too. And a lot. It could finally legitimize the technology in glasses, eliminating the cultural resistance that has sunk projects like Google Glass. When the technology is invisible and solves a real problem, adoption becomes natural.
In a few years, we could all wear autofocus glasses without even thinking about it. Just like we use our smartphones today without marveling at the technological miracle they represent. And maybe, finally, we will be able to read the menu at the restaurant without having to do a head dance looking for the right spot on the progressive lenses.
