A legally blind man who had not been able to see a soccer match in almost 30 years recently watched his favorite club live with the help of eSight’s visual aid technology.
Brian Casey, a 51-year-old U.K. resident became the first person in Europe to test and use eSight’s high-tech, HD video glasses, which play live video of everything the user looks at right in front of their eyes. Casey has been legally blind for almost 27 years after two separate sports injuries. A squash accident impaired his left eye and a separate soccer incident caused him to lose most of the vision in his right eye, according to the Blackpool Gazette.
Casey tested the eSight glasses in March, and in late July, he watched his club, Fleetwood Town, play a friendly against Preston North End. Fleetwood lost 5 to 1.
“It was brilliant to be able to see the vivid green of the pitch, the color of the shorts and the numbers on the players’ backs,” Casey told the Daily Mail. “When Fleetwood scored and I saw the ball hit the back of the net, it was something I could only dream about before I got involved in eSight.”
eSight has previously worked with the Utah Jazz, Indianapolis Colts and Calgary Flames to help legally blind fans crisply watch games for the first time.
The company began to work towards helping the nearly 245 million legally blind people around the world in 2006. eSight does not currently have the technology to help the completely blind.
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eSight, which has offices in Los Angeles, Toronto and Ottawa, is classified by the FDA and Health Canada as a Class I medical device. The company’s tech-filled, video-based glasses recently went through new clinical trials at major North American universities, including Johns Hopkins University Wilmer Eye Center, Kellogg Eye Center at the University of Michigan, Université of Montréal, and others.
eSight glasses use high-speed, HD cameras to capture what the user sees in real-time. The company’s algorithms then optimize the video for the legally blind with low levels of vision and display it on two OLED screens that act as the glasses.
The company’s patented Bioptic Tilt technology allows the users to adjust the glasses for the best view possible while maximizing peripheral vision, which enables eSight to be worn during activities such as running or even playing basketball. eSight users can adjust between short-range, mid-range, and long-range visual options with the use of a handheld control.
eSight released the third version of its glasses, the eSight 3, in February. The new glasses improved upon the first two iterations of the product. The new glasses are lighter and less bulky. More importantly, the glasses now allow users to zoom in 24x—up from the previous 14x—and see a wider overall area. The eSight 3 also enables users to stream video and take photos with its new built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and HDMI capabilities. The new glasses are currently available for $9,995.