Is there anything smartphones can’t do? Besides having taken over our lives as communication and entertainment hubs, a growing use of the devices is in eye healthcare. Guided by a socially-inclusive ethos, New York-based Smart Vision Labs has created a low-cost, portable iPhone-based gadget to help people in developing countries to diagnose vision problems.
The device is called the SVOne and it’s an autorefractor/aberrator that can be added on to an iPhone, transforming the phone into a portable lab. It’s similar to other socially-oriented solutions such as Peek and EyeGo.
SVOne uses a sensor technology called Wavefront, which diagnoses refractive errors. The software algorithm analyzes the Wavefront data and converts it into lens prescriptions. The data is sent to the cloud from where it can be accessed and reviewed any time by healthcare providers, remote technicians and patients.
A lasting battery is another feature that enhances the portability of the system, as one charge will cover 56 hours of continuous refracting. This makes it ideal for doctors working in less than ideal settings, where costly vision testing equipment is out of reach. SVOne has been successfully field-tested in Haiti and Guatemala.