Google Wants to Help Diabetics Monitor Glucose with Smart Contacts

When the folks at Google X labs aren’t tuning self-driving Priuses or floating internet-disseminating balloons, they’re apparently working on helpful devices for people with chronic health conditions. Today, Google took the wraps off an alternative to needle-based glucose tests for people with diabetes: simple, painless, and unobtrusive smart contact lenses. How great is that? 

The lenses, which are made up of a miniaturized sensor and wireless chip wedged between contact material, work by measuring the glucose level in tears. Readings are generated once per second and sent to an external electronic like a smartphone, but the team is working on integrating LEDs that would more easily warn the wearer if levels became dangerously high or low.

Google says the technology is still in the early stages, but that it has completed multiple clinical research studies to improve the contacts and is working with the FDA to bring a product to market. A purchasable product is obviously a few years away, but it’s great to see Google X working to improve the lives of so many people.

Via: Google