Stealth Optometry

You go to get new glasses, but have to wait a bit before the optometrist is ready to see you. While waiting (just a few minutes) you thumb through some magazines, check your phone, and glance at the TV.

When you get into the examining room, they hand you a pair of glasses. They fit perfectly, and already have lenses with the exact correction you need.

How?

The waiting room is fitted with multiple hidden cameras. Not unlike the kind smartphones have for doing facial recognition - but with more sensors looking from more angles, and more computing power than will fit in your phone. In the few minutes you were waiting for your “exam,” lidar and ultrasound measured your corneas and retinas as well as your inter-pupil distance, width of your face and the bridge of your nose, and temple length. They also note how far from your face you held your phone or the magazine you were reading, or if had to squint while watching the telly. This let the clinician snap together and adjust a set of frames and lenses to confirm the details, so all you really need to do is pick out a frame style you like and hand over your money.

Inspired by real world phone apps that already measure face width and inter-pupil distance, I don’t think this is too far off. Except eventually you might not need to go for a fitting - the whole exam/sensor package WILL fit into your phone.