Essilor has won an award at the Salon Mondial de l’Optique (the international exhibition for the optics sector, 23 to 26 September) for its Eye Protect System™. This innovative new lens helps protect the eye from harmful light by partially filtering out blue-violet light by absorption while remaining aesthetically clear. Essilor has also been awarded a Silmo d’Or in the Low Vision category for MyEye: Incorporating artificial intelligence, this visual aid for people with low vision is able to read text and recognise people’s faces and everyday objects.

“Eye Protect System demonstrates our commitment to continuing to provide innovative solutions for the correction, protection and prevention needs of consumers throughout the world people whose eyes are exposed to UV rays every day, as well as to harmful blue-violet light. Innovation in the field of optics is needed more than ever before, to help ensure people’s visual health throughout life” emphasises Jean Carrier, Chief Operating Officer of the Essilor Group.

The innovative lens enables all consumers to benefit from breakthroughs in prevention thanks to its specific absorption properties. Eye Protect System’s various absorbers target harmful blue-violet lights while absorbing the residual yellow tint which emerges when blue light is filtered, thus resulting in a completely aesthetically clear lens.

In order to ensure that visual protection becomes a standard in ophthalmic lenses, Essilor is deploying its Eye Protect System on a very wide selection of its range both those making up its own brands and those of its networks throughout the world the aim being to promote access to prevention in visual health. The Eye Protect System innovation now comes as standard on all Essilor Transitions lenses and is deployed on Varilux, Eyezen+ and Crizal.

Blue-violet light has been identified as one of the risk factors in retinal diseases such as ARMD, along with smoking, ageing, genetics, diet…. It features mainly in natural light, but is also emitted by the digital screens to which the eyes of both adults and children are exposed on a frequent basis and for prolonged periods of time.

Eye Protect system also blocks the transmission of UV rays that, over time, can accelerate the eye’s ageing and can lead to the early appearance of cataracts. Every year, 5 million people lose their sight because of cataracts. And children’s eyes are more vulnerable than adults’ to the harmful effects of the sun because their crystalline lenses are not yet mature and are not yet able to block them out.

MyEye, a solution for the 140 million visually-impaired people throughout the world MyEye is a device for enhancing the lives of people with visual impairment people whose visual needs can no longer be addressed by corrective lenses. Incorporating artificial intelligence, MyEye integrates a miniature camera and an earphone into the temple of a pair of glasses and reads text that it sees into the user’s ear. It can recognise everyday products, read totals on tickets and give the names of people that it recognises. For both indoor and outdoor use, the MyEye device is light, discreet and easy to use. It can store up to 100 faces and 150 consumer goods.

This innovation, developed by start-up OrCam and distributed in France by Essilor, is designed to improve the autonomy of visually-impaired people. Today, 140 million people throughout the world suffer from visual impairment mainly ARMD or glaucoma.