Electronic Sunglasses Use Glare Shield to Block the Sun

Sunglasses may not be the fashion trend they used to be (that may not be a bad thing), but that's not stopping one designer from giving the sunglasses a brand new way from stopping the sun from invading your eyes. Instead of coating the entire lens of your sunglasses, designer Chris Mullin wants to be able to focus on the sun directly, and use what he calls a Glare Shield to keep the sunlight out of your eye, but without dimming everything else you're looking at, too.

Mullin calls the glasses the "Electronic Sunglasses." They use a Glare Shield to prevent bright lights, from artificial sources to the sun, from assaulting your eyes. They do this in real-time, with a "pixel" that will move to an area within the glasses, and block the light. It would work by utilizing a liquid crystal display, which has the ability of detecting light sources. By judging which sources of light are the brightest, the Glare Shield will react accordingly, and block it if necessary.

The Glare Shield works because of the pixels in the liquid crystal display. As a bright light source enters your field of vision, the pixels darken in that area, and block the light from your sight. Mullin says that this would happen faster than your eyes could see, so there shouldn't be any lag. With a great design, we're not surprised to hear that the Electronic Sunglasses are actually on the path to becoming a real gadget you can buy.

[via Yanko Design]