Most of the entries in the Hackaday Prize Assistive Technology challenge solve an obvious problem. 3D printed prosthetics, a computer mouse for the mouth, and text to speech systems all have obvious uses. For his Hackaday Prize entry, [spandana] decided on something a little less obvious. He’s going after the scourge of dry eyes with Humidifeyes.
The problem of dry eyes seems a bit esoteric at first glance, but [spandana] is specifically designing this device for people with Steven Johnson’s Syndrome. It’s been mentioned that LASIK patients have dry eyes for months. There is, apparently, an opportunity here.
The mechanics of the device are pretty simple. The current prototype uses off the shelf safety glasses with a little foam around the edges as a chassis. Moisture is delivered from a reservoir to an ultrasonic vibrator. This is a very effective way to atomize liquids, and is small enough to fit on the frame of a pair of glasses.
Although this is the sort of project that’s just a bit weird and allows for too many puns, there’s the glimmer of something useful in here. Dry eyes are a problem, and short of a bottle of Visine, there’s not much to do about it.
Hm, I’d worry about germs growing in the water, last thing you need. Thing needs to be easily sterilisable, and even then I’d worry. You can’t mess about with eyes! Since they have a poor blood supply, they’re susceptible to infection, and quite a few of them can leave you blind.
http://news.psu.edu/story/187690/2002/12/11/ultrasound-potentially-safe-effective-way-kill-bacteria
Tap water’s not so bad. It’s fine for irrigating wounds:
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-37732497
Concern trolls tend to be concerned about things they don’t really know about. Try reading a book or something.
The difference is this is stagnant water, in a mechanism that’s going to be refilled but possibly not effectively sterilised. Damp things grow germs. Irrigating a wound with flowing water is one thing, constantly misting eyes from a tank is another. You can get stuff like amoebic keratitis and go blind. I used to wear contact lenses, you learn a certain amount about this sort of thing. It’s why you need to boil your lens case every few days. Even then I got conjunctivitis once, it’s par for the course with contacts.
Not trolling, genuinely don’t think this is safe. Has the guy actually addressed the problem of germs? If he’s researched it, that’d be better at least.
Agreeing with you. Personal experience with a ultra-sonic humidifier, woke up couple days in a row with red eyes, tracked it to the ultra-sonic humidifier, changed to a boiling water version, no more problem. The problem with the ultra-sonic or fan based approach is that it can spread also whatever is in the water.
nice thought. problem is there; solution is presented. now its time to engineer the Science out of this :)
how about a USB-eye-humidifier? all the people who stare at a computer screen for more (than 8) hours in a conditioned environment will be very happy…
For less extreme cases, just a close fitting pair of safety glasses work wonders in dry places like airplanes. Your own eyes and surrounding skin provide the humidity.
Add another 10c device…. a surgical mask… those buggers never seal at my nose and fog up whatever eyewear I’m using.