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Electronic focusing eye wear available across US
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NEW YORK — Executives from PixelOptics announced plans for further development of its electronic focusing eyeglasses here at a press conference during Vision Expo East.
According to PixelOptics senior vice president and chief sales officer Larry Rodriguez, 13 production labs have been established in the U.S. along with 64 labs to sell emPower eye wear. "March through December 2011 we developed our eye care practitioner network, resulting in 1,450 ECPs with signed dealership agreements," he said. "We trained 4,000 ECPs and opticians." Mr. Rodriguez said 687 offices are now selling the emPower eye wear.
"Now that emPower is available in all U.S. markets, our focus for the next year will be to improve operational excellence, add new capabilities through diversification to the existing platform and work towards a global expansion in Europe and Asia by 2013," PixelOptics president and chief executive officer, Brett Craig, said in a company press release.
According to Mr. Rodriguez, PixelOptics has seen 92% to 98% patient satisfaction.
"Our patient response has been unlike any other product I've worked with in 26 years," he said. "We have only 2% nonadapts. That's a 30% improvement over the industry nonadapt rate."
Richard Clompus, OD, PixelOptics vice president of professional relations, described the lens design.
"You have distance and a large intermediate area," he said. "When you want reading, you touch the button. The liquid crystal is sandwiched between distance and intermediate. We took the near/reading portion that is usually at the bottom of the lens and moved it up to become more comfortable."
Patients can activate the reading portion by swiping the temple of the eye wear. When the head is tilted back up to look in the distance, the reading portion is deactivated.
Several consumers who have been wearing the emPower lens shared their experiences with members of the press.
A hair stylist said the eye wear allows her to easily shift her focus from distance viewing to intermediate when she is working on a customer to near when she is taking down appointments.
A pastor said the automatic focusing is particularly useful for him when speaking to a large group and reading from the scripture.