Based in 2021, XPANCEO has emerged as a pioneer in reimagining how we work together with expertise. Not like firms growing the following era of smartphones or laptops, XPANCEO is taking a basically completely different strategy: computing that sits immediately in your eye. At Cell World Congress (MWC) 2025, the deep tech firm unveiled a number of prototypes that exhibit their imaginative and prescient of invisible, weightless computing by good contact lenses.
The core idea behind XPANCEO’s expertise is each easy and revolutionary: substitute conventional silicon-based units 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 most effective gadget isn’t any gadget,” displays their dedication to creating expertise that disappears into the background whereas enhancing human capabilities.
These good contact lenses will not be 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 Major Prototypes
Sensible Contact Lens with Wi-fi Powering Companion
One of many basic challenges for any wearable gadget—notably 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 measurement and type to a normal contact lens case.
Regardless of the superior expertise, the lens maintains a versatile, light-weight design. Security stays essential—the radiation ranges are similar to frequent wearable units, addressing potential considerations about having a powered gadget so near the attention.
Sensible Contact Lens with Wi-fi Powering Companion (XPANCEO)
Biosensing Sensible Contact Lens
The second prototype showcases the potential of good lenses for well being monitoring. Conventional biomarker measurements typically require invasive procedures like blood attracts, which may be inconvenient and uncomfortable. XPANCEO’s Biosensing Sensible Contact Lens takes a special strategy by measuring physique parameters immediately 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 allows high-sensitivity monitoring of key well being indicators together with:
- Glucose ranges, essential for diabetes administration
- Varied hormones together with cortisol, estradiol, estrone, progesterone, and testosterone
- Nutritional vitamins B1, B2, B3, E, and D
By repeatedly monitoring these biomarkers, the lens may rework private well being administration. Fairly than periodic testing, customers would have fixed consciousness of their physique’s chemistry, doubtlessly enabling earlier detection of well being points and extra personalised wellness approaches.
Biosensing Sensible Contact Lens (XPANCEO)
Sensible Contact Lens with IOP Sensor
The third prototype addresses a particular however important 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 supplies 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 a virtually 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 method may dramatically enhance early glaucoma detection and ongoing administration, doubtlessly stopping irreversible imaginative and prescient loss by well timed intervention.
Sensible Contact Lens with IOP Sensor (XPANCEO)
Further Improvements
Past the three fundamental 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 immediately right into a contact lens. The microdisplay can undertaking digital data immediately onto the retina, creating a mix of digital and bodily worlds.
What makes this notably spectacular is the dimensions 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 functions starting from navigation and real-time data show to fully new types of digital interplay.
Information Studying Lens with Wi-fi Transmission
The fifth prototype unveiled at MWC was a Sensible Contact Lens for Information Studying, geared up with an built-in wi-fi knowledge transmission antenna and mass-production-ready versatile electronics. This lens allows real-time switch of data from the contact lens to a companion gadget.
The companion gadget serves a twin function—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 gadget. Customers can obtain biometric data collected by the lens immediately on their smartphones, making the information instantly accessible and helpful.
Technical Achievements
XPANCEO’s prototypes are a number of breakthrough applied sciences which are working to beat longstanding challenges in wearable computing.
Among the many most vital achievements demonstrated at MWC 2025 have been:
- Sub-0.5mm projectors: These ultra-miniaturized show parts allow visible data to be projected whereas sustaining the skinny profile needed for a snug contact lens.
- World’s thinnest versatile 2D conductors: These enable 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 provide options to a number of challenges: miniaturization, flexibility, energy effectivity, and sign detection. Many of those capabilities have been beforehand thought unimaginable on the scale of a contact lens.
The connection between the contact lenses and their companion units is a important design alternative. Fairly than making an attempt 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 units deal with energy supply, knowledge processing, and connectivity with different programs. This strategy retains the lenses skinny and comfy whereas nonetheless enabling subtle performance. The companion units are designed to be unobtrusive, related in measurement 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 most effective gadget isn’t any gadget” suggests a future the place expertise recedes from acutely aware consciousness whereas changing into extra intimately related to our our bodies and senses.
This strategy may get rid of lots of the boundaries and frictions in present human-computer interplay. As an alternative of typing, swiping, or talking, interplay would possibly occur by extra pure means like gaze route. As an alternative of pulling out a tool to entry data, that data can be out there inside our visible discipline every time wanted.
It is a important 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 actually ubiquitous and frictionless entry to the digital world.