It’s good news for all those who love to match their sunglasses with their outfits. You no longer have to stack up different coloured sun glasses in your wardrobe; you can buy ’smart’ sunglasses which will change colours on-demand and use all the saved dough to buy outfits to match the changing colours of your sunglasses!
Chemists at the University of Washington in Seattle are developing new colourful “smart” sunglasses which could be the fashion statement of the future. The wearer can change the colours of the sunglasses instantly to any of the rainbow hues by turning a tiny electronic knob in the frame.
How does this work? The lenses in the sunglasses use a unique type of electro chromic polymer that can change levels of darkness and colour in the presence of an electric current which comes from a tiny battery.
While the current prototype looks like a pair of laboratory goggles and can switch from transparent to blue, plus various shades in between, the chemists are working on incorporating the lenses in more fashionable frames which comes with a protective layer to block UV light and also change the shades to multi-colours.
Chunye Xu, research assistant professor at the University of Washington, says:
These lenses are more active, more intelligent, than today’s sunglasses But because of the materials we’re using we don’t think the price is going to be very different.
Since the glasses are going to cost about the same as a normal pair of sunglasses, I’m sure they’ll be a hit among the fashion conscious crowd. The bad news is that we’ll have to wait for another year before they eventually hit the market.
