Connected

Don’t Tell Anyone

Shhh . . . don’t tell anyone, but I bought a pair of “smart glasses”!

As the end of the year approached, I thought I would be able to get another pair of glasses, at my usual place; but my insurance changed, thus I needed to find a company who took my new insurance. Lately, I have been participating in telemedicine, a story for another day, and wondered if I could get my glasses via online. I went out to my vision plan, and yes, they work with an online distributor of eyewear.

While on the eyewear site, they have program which allows you to virtually try on glasses. Of course, I played with that feature, but it did not work well, although it was fun. I did try to get Jill to play with it as well, but she had picked out her glasses and was ready to go. Frankly, this is always the situation in the physical eyeglass shop as well. It takes her minutes, me, much longer.

So, I continued the search, and clicked on featured glasses, which took me to a brand called Level.

Level technology was a joint development project between the insurance company, VSP, and University of Southern California Center for Body Computing. VSP sought to develop an activity tracking frame that would sync with a smartphone app.

VSP has an interesting perspective to wearable technology. They state that glasses have been around for seven hundred years, helping people to see better, thus glasses are the oldest and most successful example of wearable technology.

There are three frames presently available, each frame is named after a historical innovator. For example, my frame was named after Marvin Minsky, an American cognitive scientist with extensive research in artificial intelligence. All frames are designed in the U.S. but made in Italy.

Below is a picture of my new glasses charging:

I downloaded the app, and tested the accuracy of the smart glasses by getting on Jill’s treadmill. I was surprised at the accuracy of the activity tracker. I also hid my glasses to see if my smart phone would accurately locate my glasses successfully, which it did! This is how I now play “hide n seek” 😉

Another feature of Level technology is that the organization works with Eyes of Hope, which is a charitable giving program that provides access to eye exams and glasses for individuals in need. Each time I reach my activity goal, I earn a point, and at fifty points, Eyes of Hope will donate an eye exam and a pair of glasses on my behalf to someone in need. I had four choices, and I chose seniors.

As a cybersecurity strategist, wearables are another vulnerability, yet to be secured. And while Level technology is HIPAA compliant, I also understand that I need to do my part to stay safely Connected.

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