When Smartphones Do A Doctors Job

Eye testing device developed by EyeNetra

Vitor Pamplona isn’t a doctor. He’s not even an optician. He can’t write you a prescription for glasses, or sell you a pair. The device, called the Netra-G, is based on some clever optics and software Victor Pamplona came up with
—a way to measure the refractive error of the eye using a smartphone screen and an inexpensive pair of plastic binoculars. The whole setup might cost a few dollars to make. It does the job of a $5,000 instrument called an autorefractor.

More important, just about anyone could use it. That’s where the disruption comes in—and the trouble. Right now, only doctors or optometrists can prescribe glasses or contact lenses.

Pamplona, a brash Brazilian programmer who arrived in the U.S. a few years ago, thinks that won’t always be the case. “We’re changing medicine by providing the user the right to

measure themselves,” he says. “We see doctors as more of a coach.”

Pamplona invented the Netra while studying in an MIT lab specializing in computational photography. That technology uses computers to bend the limits of traditional photography—

it has led to cameras that that see around corners or that can focus at every distance, all at once.

Using the device, a person might figure out his or her prescription and then, from the very same app, order glasses from an online store like Warby Parker.

It's currently available in the U.S, hoping it finds its way to Naija.