The Argus I and II bionic eye technology promised to improve the lives of patients with visual difficulties and was eventually chosen by hundreds of people who chose to have the bionic eye fitted. A few years ago the company Second Sight abandoned the product to focus on a brain implant and, as time passes, the technology becomes obsolete, leaving some users with visual difficulties again – but in this case due to lack of repairs and hardware updates. implanted.
Adam Mendelsohn, the CEO of Nano Precision Medical, a company that is interested in buying Second Sight, was faced with these difficulties and said he intends to “make this issue our priority if and when you take the lead of the joint company”.
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The story was discovered by the publication IEEE Spectrum which reveals that the 350 patients who opted for the Second Sight solution have only been receiving limited support from the company since 2019, when officials decided to discontinue retinal implants that replace photoreceptors in the eye to create artificial vision.
One user reported becoming blind again because her bionic eye stopped working. And many others fear that when there is a breakdown, they will be left in the same situation for lack of support from Second Sight. In 2020, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and ended up changing its strategy to focus on the Orion brain implant that helps create artificial vision too, but works differently.
On the online page, you can still read that “as technology improves, so will the Argus II implant – without the need for additional surgeries. Enjoy programming flexibility and the ability for future hardware and software upgrades” – a promise that, in light of the facts revealed, has not been kept.
Not counting the surgery or the hours of training required for users, the entire Second Sight system costs about $150,000 and includes an implant, glasses with an integrated camera, and a video processing unit that is placed in the of the patient’s waist. The camera captures the images, sends them to processing, where they are converted into white and black pixels and sent back to the glasses, which then transmit them, wirelessly, to the antenna placed outside the eye, where they are recreated in the form of flashes. of light transmitted to the optic nerve implant.
O IEEE Spectrum heard from some patients who complained that their devices stopped working and that they received little or no support from Second Sight. The company justifies that, during the period of financial difficulties, it had to reduce the number of workers, which could have contributed to longer response times. At this time, the commitment is to contact doctors and patients to give them some support, but no parts replacements or repairs are planned. The situation could change if the merger with Nano Precision Medical proceeds.
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