MicroLED Industry Association member XPANCEO announced a partnership with Jade Bird Display (JBD) to develop integrated microLED displays for XPANCEO's smart contact lens platform.
It turns out the two companies have been working already on two different approaches. The first one (shown in the image above) uses a project and hologram combination, projecting an image at a distance so the eye can focus on it. XPANCEO already tested this approach with JBD's microLED projector, as an external device to the contact lens, and now the two companies are aiming to integrate the microLED projector unto the lens.
There's also a second approach (shown in the image above), in which the microdisplays projects the image directly from inside the lens, using a custom collimation system to direct the image as a parallel beam of light, enabling the eye to focus on it. JBD and XPANCE developed and produced a prototype display, showing that it is possible to keep the entire lens and microdisplay thickness under 0.5 mm.
XPANCEO says that the two companies have also proven that power consumption can be reduced dramatically as the required resolution and brightness can be much smaller compared to AR HMD displays, which means that the power consumption of XPANCEO's displays can be kept under 10 µW, which is 100-300 times less than
comparable prospective AR glasses.
