Based in 2021, XPANCEO has emerged as a pioneer in reimagining how we work together with expertise. Not like corporations growing the following era of smartphones or laptops, XPANCEO is taking a essentially completely different method: computing that sits instantly in your eye. At Cell World Congress (MWC) 2025, the deep tech firm unveiled a number of prototypes that reveal their imaginative and prescient of invisible, weightless computing by way of good contact lenses.
The core idea behind XPANCEO’s expertise is each easy and revolutionary: exchange conventional silicon-based gadgets with computing that feels as pure as your individual imaginative and prescient. By integrating superior expertise into contact lenses, XPANCEO goals to create a seamless mix between digital data and the bodily world—what they name an “eXtended Actuality expertise.” Their philosophy, “the perfect machine isn’t any machine,” displays their dedication to creating expertise that disappears into the background whereas enhancing human capabilities.
These good contact lenses are usually not simply theoretical ideas or early laboratory experiments. At MWC 2025, XPANCEO demonstrated working prototypes with capabilities starting from well being monitoring to augmented actuality (AR), suggesting that their imaginative and prescient of invisible computing is approaching actuality.
The Three Predominant Prototypes
Good Contact Lens with Wi-fi Powering Companion
One of many elementary challenges for any wearable machine—significantly one as small as a contact lens—is energy supply. XPANCEO’s first prototype addresses this problem with a wi-fi powering system that considerably advances present expertise.
This lens options absolutely distant energy switch with twice the vary of earlier business options, permitting customers to energy their lenses with out direct contact. The powering companion is designed as a transportable accent that may be carried in a handbag or pocket, related in dimension and kind to a normal contact lens case.
Regardless of the superior expertise, the lens maintains a versatile, light-weight design. Security stays necessary—the radiation ranges are corresponding to frequent wearable gadgets, addressing potential issues about having a powered machine so near the attention.
Good Contact Lens with Wi-fi Powering Companion (XPANCEO)
Biosensing Good Contact Lens
The second prototype showcases the potential of good lenses for well being monitoring. Conventional biomarker measurements usually require invasive procedures like blood attracts, which will be inconvenient and uncomfortable. XPANCEO’s Biosensing Good Contact Lens takes a distinct method by measuring physique parameters instantly from tear fluid.
The lens options a sophisticated biosensor that works with nanoparticles to reinforce the sign of parts current in tear fluid. This expertise permits high-sensitivity monitoring of key well being indicators together with:
- Glucose ranges, necessary for diabetes administration
- Varied hormones together with cortisol, estradiol, estrone, progesterone, and testosterone
- Nutritional vitamins B1, B2, B3, E, and D
By constantly monitoring these biomarkers, the lens might rework private well being administration. Reasonably than periodic testing, customers would have fixed consciousness of their physique’s chemistry, probably enabling earlier detection of well being points and extra personalised wellness approaches.
Biosensing Good Contact Lens (XPANCEO)
Good Contact Lens with IOP Sensor
The third prototype addresses a particular however crucial well being concern: glaucoma administration. Glaucoma, a number one explanation for blindness worldwide, is characterised by elevated strain inside the attention (intraocular strain or IOP). Early detection and steady monitoring are important for stopping imaginative and prescient loss.
XPANCEO’s IOP Sensor lens offers non-invasive, steady monitoring of eye strain. At MWC, the corporate demonstrated this expertise alongside a customized eye mannequin that replicates the human eye. The lens incorporates an almost invisible optical sample that shifts in response to adjustments in intraocular strain.
When customers scan this sample with an AI-powered smartphone app, they obtain real-time, exact measurements of their IOP. This technique might dramatically enhance early glaucoma detection and ongoing administration, probably stopping irreversible imaginative and prescient loss by way of well timed intervention.
Good Contact Lens with IOP Sensor (XPANCEO)
Extra Improvements
Past the three principal prototypes, XPANCEO additionally showcased two extra good contact lens applied sciences that broaden their imaginative and prescient of invisible computing.
Improved AR Imaginative and prescient Lens with Built-in Microdisplay
XPANCEO demonstrated an enhanced model of their AR Imaginative and prescient lens that includes an built-in microdisplay. Not like typical augmented actuality programs that require cumbersome headsets, this expertise is embedded instantly right into a contact lens. The microdisplay can undertaking digital data instantly onto the retina, creating a mix of digital and bodily worlds.
What makes this significantly spectacular is the scale constraint—creating show expertise sufficiently small to slot in a contact lens whereas sustaining visible readability represents a major development. The AR Imaginative and prescient lens factors towards purposes starting from navigation and real-time data show to fully new types of digital interplay.
Knowledge Studying Lens with Wi-fi Transmission
The fifth prototype unveiled at MWC was a Good Contact Lens for Knowledge Studying, outfitted with an built-in wi-fi knowledge transmission antenna and mass-production-ready versatile electronics. This lens permits real-time switch of data from the contact lens to a companion machine.
The companion machine serves a twin objective—functioning as each a charger and a computational hub. This structure permits the lens to stay small and comfy whereas offloading intensive processing duties to the companion machine. Customers can obtain biometric data collected by the lens instantly on their smartphones, making the info instantly accessible and helpful.
Technical Achievements
XPANCEO’s prototypes are a number of breakthrough applied sciences which can be working to beat longstanding challenges in wearable computing.
Among the many most important achievements demonstrated at MWC 2025 had been:
- Sub-0.5mm projectors: These ultra-miniaturized show parts allow visible data to be projected whereas sustaining the skinny profile obligatory for a snug contact lens.
- World’s thinnest versatile 2D conductors: These permit digital parts to bend with the lens, important for each consolation and sturdiness.
- Excessive-sensitivity compact IOP sensors: These can detect minute adjustments in eye strain whereas remaining sufficiently small for integration right into a contact lens.
- Nanoparticle-enhanced biosensors: This expertise amplifies the sign from biomarkers in tear fluid, permitting detection at very low concentrations.
These applied sciences can supply options to a number of challenges: miniaturization, flexibility, energy effectivity, and sign detection. Many of those capabilities had been beforehand thought not possible on the scale of a contact lens.
The connection between the contact lenses and their companion gadgets is a crucial design alternative. Reasonably than attempting to pack all computing energy into the lens itself—which might create energy and warmth points—XPANCEO has developed a distributed computing mannequin.
The companion gadgets deal with energy supply, knowledge processing, and connectivity with different programs. This method retains the lenses skinny and comfy whereas nonetheless enabling refined performance. The companion gadgets are designed to be unobtrusive, related in dimension to a contact lens case that may be carried in a pocket or purse.
Reshaping Human-Laptop Interplay
Probably the most profound implication of those lenses is the potential shift in how we work together with computing. XPANCEO’s assertion that “the perfect machine isn’t any machine” suggests a future the place expertise recedes from aware consciousness whereas turning into extra intimately related to our our bodies and senses.
This method might remove lots of the boundaries and frictions in present human-computer interplay. As an alternative of typing, swiping, or talking, interplay would possibly occur by way of extra pure means like gaze course. As an alternative of pulling out a tool to entry data, that data can be accessible inside our visible area each time wanted.
It is a vital evolution from the smartphone period. Whereas smartphones made computing moveable, they nonetheless require deliberate consideration and bodily interplay. Contact lens computing would create a world the place the interface between people and digital data turns into practically imperceptible, creating really ubiquitous and frictionless entry to the digital world.