Innovega, a company known for its augmented-reality contact lens technology, has turned its focus to a different product for now: smart glasses for people who are visually impaired.
The market: nearly 300 million people worldwide who’ve lost a significant amount of their vision, leaving them unable to read a menu, for example, or recognize a face across the room.
The product, which Innovega calls Gen One, looks like an ordinary pair of glasses and weighs under 70 grams. A camera in the frame captures the scene in front of the wearer. Software tuned to that person’s specific vision condition adjusts magnification, brightness, contrast and sharpness. The result appears on transparent micro-OLED displays over each eye.
When the displays are off, the wearer looks through clear lenses. A tap on the frame or a voice command brings the enhanced view up. The glasses tether to a smartphone for processing.
The goal is to “substantially change the quality of life and independence of tens of millions of people in the U.S. and hundreds of millions globally,” said Steve Willey, Innovega’s CEO and co-founder, and the former president of laser-projection company MicroVision.
How they got here: GeekWire has been tracking Innovega for many years, since finding the company’s booth in 2012 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The company, founded in the Seattle region, has spent years developing high-tech contact lenses to let wearers focus on tiny displays built into eyeglasses, creating an augmented reality experience in a form factor far lighter than a headset. It won contracts from DARPA and the U.S. Army, and raised early funding from Tencent and other investors.
Along the way, the company was waiting for the industry to unfold in a way that would support its approach. But about two years ago, Willey took stock. Microsoft was backing away from HoloLens. Snap and Google had yet to ship consumer AR glasses. Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses were popular but lacked a visual display at the time.
So they went in a new direction.
“We said, why don’t we just pick the most simple application you could imagine?” Willey recalled. “And it’s just a person who has poor vision, who wants to have good vision.”
At the same time, the company concluded that only a fraction of its target market would be willing to wear contact lenses. That’s how it ended up going with glasses alone.
The approach: The specification for a visually impaired or legally blind person turned out to be radically different from the specification for a gamer. Someone who has lost their central vision doesn’t need 4K resolution and a 100-degree field of view. They need personalized magnification, brightness, and contrast, in a device they’d actually wear all day.
The resulting product is more like a regular pair of glasses, not a bulky headset.
Innovega expects about three hours of active use on a charge, but the glasses would be usable for a full day, since the display only switches on when the wearer needs to use it.
The company has pre-sold more than 100 pairs of the Gen One at $2,950 each through what it calls its Founder Series, with buyers paying full price for first access. It’s now taking orders for 1,000 more, and aims to begin commercial delivery in early 2027. Pre-orders are fully refundable until the glasses ship.
Innovega says it has signed a manufacturing agreement with Quanta Computer, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer that builds products for Apple, Meta, and Google. Willey described the partnership as unusual for a company of Innovega’s size. The company says it has committed $1 million to Quanta and other partners to finalize a design it can scale.
The company has filed more than 75 patents, domestic and international, and has completed about $6 million in contract work over its lifetime, including a variety of projects for the U.S. defense community, Microsoft, and Oakley.
The team: Innovega has about 20 people, including employees and contractors. Its clinical and engineering facilities are in San Diego, with administration, marketing, and active advisors in the Pacific Northwest.
Technical leaders include Arthur Zhang, CTO, a former senior manager of system architecture in Apple’s Vision Products Group, where he helped ship the first generation of Apple Vision Pro. Jay Marsh is chief engineer, and the hardware lead is Sang Lee, a former engineering manager in Apple’s Technology Development Group.
The business team includes Corrinalyn Guyette, partnerships; Vijay Raghavan, fractional CFO, a former Microsoft controller; and Bambo Sofola, business strategy, a former partner general manager of software engineering in Microsoft’s Devices and Experiences group.
Funding: About a third of the company’s roughly $25 million in total capital has come from strategic investors, including Tencent. Another third came from family offices and high-net-worth individuals. The remaining third, about $9 million, has come through crowdfunding, spread across approximately 4,000 shareholders. The company plans to raise $10 million to $20 million this year to go toward product manufacturing, launch, marketing, and distribution.
What’s next: After the launch of the Gen One to people who are visually impaired, the company plans to add applications for hearing impairment and cognitive or memory support.
The company’s contact lens technology could return as part of Gen Two, which Innovega says would deliver a much wider field of view, improved vision, and lighter eyewear.
In addition to its commercial initiatives, Innovega says it recently launched a related nonprofit, Vision for Humanity, focused on the low-vision community.
