Sunglasses

Although you may not give much thought to the weight of your sports sunglasses, you likely would notice if they were exceptionally light. Adidas' new 3D-printed specs certainly fit the bill, as they reportedly tip the scales at a mere 20 grams.

While many people have bifocal everyday glasses, their sunglasses tend to be single-vision. The new 32ºN sunglasses, however, let users switch over to a "reading glasses" mode with a simple swipe of their finger.

Tech startup Ampere has smartened up the humble sunglasses with Dusk, a pair of shades that change tint on demand via a phone app or a button press. A deluxe model also packs built-in speakers and a microphone for making calls.

EyKuver has developed a new way of turning prescription eyeglasses into sunglasses. Its affordable, easily removable cling-on tinted film patches create temporary sunglasses to block harmful ultraviolet light.

If the smart specs already on the market aren't enough to get you excited, why not make your own? That's exactly what electrical engineer and product designer Sam March has done, with the help of a CNC router and some app coding.

Bose launched a new audio product in late 2018, in the shape of two pairs of sunglasses equipped with tiny speakers and a microphone. And clearly the company has had some success with them as three more flavors have now joined the Frames lineup.

Although we've seen devices such as wrist bands that warn of UV exposure, users still have to, you know … look at the things. Glatus sunglasses instead verbally notify you, plus they'll reportedly let you know if you're too drowsy to drive.

With an array of tiny speakers and a microphone built into the arms, Bose hopes its Frames sunglasses will begin life as a personal audio device, but soon start augmenting realities by layering useful snippets of sound over what the wearer sees in front of them.

In a world bombarded by screens constantly blasting ads and visual noise, a team of artists and designers wondered if glasses could be created that can black out all those invasive messages. After a year of research and prototyping the IRL Glasses are now launching on Kickstarter.

​Over the years, we've gotten pretty used to glasses with photochromic lenses, which automatically darken when exposed to bright light. This Wednesday, however, Johnson & Johnson Vision announced the upcoming availability of its self-tinting contact lenses.

​Some serious cyclists have taken to using breathing strips or even stents to hold their nostrils open, in order to increase the amount of air that they're able to take in through their nose. Well, a new set of cycling glasses does the same thing, but using magnets.

​If you're using the sun to power a mobile device, it only makes sense to put the solar cells on something you're wearing that will be receiving a lot of sunlight. With that in mind, researchers have created a pair of sunglasses that generate electricity via solar cells that double as their lenses.