Laonz launches smart glasses to assist Parkinson’s patients 

Laonz said on Monday that it has launched new smart glasses to assist Parkinson’s disease patients in walking.

Those with Parkinson’s suffer from freezing of gait, where they suffer sudden episodes of an inability to move their feet forward.

Laonz’ smart glasses use augmented reality (AR) to form visible gait patterns on the floor so that these patients can continue to walk as intended.

The company said its trail of the glasses with Kyungpook National University Hospital’s cranial nerve research center showed that the product helped with Parkinson’s patient’s increase in gait width and walking speed, which rose by 24% and 31.7%, respectively.

The smart glasses use AI, situation recognition and computer vision technologies for the AR feature, Laonz said.

It had an accuracy of 92.9% to detect freezing of gait of the wearer, it added.

According to Laonz, the smart glasses can also help patients to avoid falls and slips.

The camera on the glasses can also detect shakes in iris of patients to treat dementia, the company said.

The smart glasses cost 5 million won and is currently only sold to hospitals.

The price is similar to that of Microsoft’s HoloLens.

Besides Laonz, multiple South Korean companies, such as Elentec and LetinAR, are entering the smart glasses arena.

LetinAR, which developed smart glasses that pair an OLED display with a pin mirror, recently received over 15 billion won in funding from companies such as Naver and Kakao.

Oppo recently unveiled its smart glasses called Air Glass that weighs 30g with a 1.3mm lens.

Apple is also expected to unveil its own AR and virtual reality headset next year.