Low Vision Aids?

Low vision aids are visual solutions aimed at expediting your leftover vision to help you perform your daily activities with added ease and convenience, a liberty taken away from you by your receding vision.

There are commonly four types of low vision aids available in the market namely optical and non-optical aids, electronic and digital magnifiers.

It is important to understand these devices must be only used when prescribed by a medical expert, eye specialist, or ophthalmologist. A certain level of training is also required to efficiently use both optical as well as non-optical/electronic devices. 

Major Types of Low Vision Aids

All four types of low vision aids i.e. optical vision aids, non-optical vision aids, electronic magnifiers, and magnifying systems have specialized task-oriented properties designed for unique purposes or activities such as close-up tasks or distance viewing tasks. 

This indicates that you may need more than one of such devices to undertake a specific task depending upon the condition of your eye and the type of daily routine you follow; for example, you’ll be needing a different type of conventional low vision aid to use your computer at home, school or office, whereas you’ll need to rely on the other when you’d be reading a menu in a restaurant.

Let’s see the major types of aids for low vision:

Optical Devices for Low Vision

Optical devices are defined as devices that consist of one or more lenses that are usually placed between the eye and the object to be viewed, for the sole reason of increasing the size of the visual of the focused object on the retina. 

These devices serve as an optical magnification tool that provides an enlarged visual of the object such as handheld and stand magnifiers, loupes, specialized magnifying reading glasses, and small telescopes. 

Apart from significantly increasing magnification these devices can also enhance quality optics through their ability to bend and refract light.

Non-optical Devices for Low Vision

Non-optical devices are designed to enhance illumination, contrast such as reading stands, bold-lined paper, magnifying mirrors, glare control sunglasses, tactile locator dots, high contrast watches etc. 

Their utility is enhanced when used with optical devices that can prove to be very helpful in reading, labeling, organizing and a host of other daily activities.

Electronic Magnifying Systems

Electronic magnifier systems, also commonly known as CCTV low vision aids, are devices that display magnified images on a monitor through the use of a mounted camera, useful in reading books, magazines, and emails.

These devices are available in different sizes and styles, depending upon the type of task you want to perform. 

There are several portable handheld electronic magnifying systems that can be carried along to different places where need be such as supermarkets for reading labels and coupons, or in restaurants for reading menus.

A Single Low Vision Solution that can Replace All other Types of Low Vision Aids?

Yes, most certainly. IrisVision is an award-winning low vision solution through which all the above tasks can be conducted through the use of a single device. 

Let’s see how this device offers the features contained in different types of low vision devices:

1.   As Low Vision Aids for Reading Books

Reading is one of the most affected areas of people suffering from low vision or eye conditions. Be it short-term reading such as reading a grocery list or enjoying reading a favorite book, each reading task is made easy and convenient with IrisVision.  

IrisVision offers several special reading features such as IrisReader (an optical character recognition software that reads text aloud) as well as a host of different reading modes designed to assist in different scenarios. Let’s have a look at them:

Reading Mode: Black & White

• This mode offers you reading material with a white background featuring black letters, best for reading text material from books or papers without color. Sometimes one has to read from surfaces having the text and background colors that make it difficult to read; for example, pink text on red background or beige text on brown background. This mode best serves such instances.

Reading Line Mode

• With reading line mode, you get a virtual magnification bar in the center of the screen, magnifying one or more lines of text at the center of the bar, while featuring a normal view of the scene above and below it. Features like this make IrisVision one of the best low vision aids for reading.

Reading Mode: Green

• With this reading mode, you get black reading text against a green background. Many people suffering from eye diseases find it to be a better contrast, not having to bear the brightness of a white background.

Reading Mode: Yellow

• You get reading text in black against a yellow background with this mode, another useful way of increasing contrast without the brightness of a white background. People find it most helpful when they have to read for extended time periods.

2.   As CCTV Low Vision Aids

IrisVision takes the concept of CCTV low vision aids to the next level by surpassing the need to carry along different monitors. The smart wearable low vision aids lets you simply strap the headgear on, with a high-resolution camera faced outwards, which serves to capture the scene for you and returns it processed and magnified in real-time, customized to the specific needs and requirements of different types of low vision conditions.

3.   As Portable Low Vision Aids

IrisVision offers you a complete hands-free experience, where a person is only required to strap on the IrisVision console around your eyes and you’re ready to go everywhere without the need to switch between various low vision devices, justifying IrisVision’s place on top of all wearable low vision aids.

4.   As Low Vision Aids for Macular Degeneration

Central vision loss is the most commonly found eye condition that people with age related macular degeneration (also known as AMD or ARMD) suffer from. 

As one of the leading causes of blindness in the US as reported by CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), age related macular degeneration has no specific treatment options available.  

However, IrisVision macular degeneration glasses as it enables the user to shrink the whole image captured by the camera lens to a much smaller area, which can be moved around across your field of vision (FOV), expediting your leftover vision like no other low vision aids.

These low vision aids are ideal for people with eye conditions such as age related macular degeneration, juvenile macular degeneration or stargardt's disease etc. 

5.   As Low Vision Aids for Glaucoma Patients

Similarly, there are different eye conditions such as glaucoma that affect the peripheral vision that cause peripheral vision loss or tunnel vision. 

Peripheral vision loss or tunnel vision shrinks your field of view from around the outer edges of the retina.

But for all those searching for the best low vision aids for glaucoma patients, IrisVision is the ideal choice due to its comprehensive award-winning software lenses. Here are two examples:

• The ‘RP Mode’ not only squeezes the whole captured scene to a smaller area, you can move it across to your central vision, which gives you better vision despite this disease.
• Another ideal feature that makes IrisVision the best low vision aids for glaucoma patients is the Bioptic Mode. This mode is beneficial for distance viewing such as reading signs or finding items on a shelf. It focuses and then magnifies a specific area without losing the context of the entire scene. 

6.   As Low Vision Aids for Capturing and Storing Photos

The wearable low vision aids lets you leverage smartphone technology and enables you to take pictures and save them in the IrisVision’s Photo Gallery. You can choose to view and even enlarge the pictures without compromising on the quality of the picture .

7.   As Low Vision Aids for Watching TV

Using the IrisVision, users can enjoy watching their favorite TV show or indulge in a movie marathon with their loved ones. That's not all, you can also access video streaming platforms like YouTube, Netflix, and alot more using the smart low vision aids.

Other salient features include adjustable IPD (interpupillary distance), powerful autofocus with near to far distance lenses, removable eye guard to suit surrounding lighting conditions, an advanced camera with 30 frames/second resolution, and many other features