Pushbutton Eye Exams. Interview with Eyebot founder Matthias Hofmann

One hundred fifty million Americans are overdue for an eye exam and 22 million adults have never even had one. Inconvenience and inaccessibility are the big drivers.

But what if self-serve fully automated testing was available in retail stores -- offering reliable eye exams at the push of a button?

Matthias Hoffman first became conscious of his vision as a teenager. He and his friends in Switzerland dreamed of becoming pilots (none actually did) but Matthias's hopes were dashed early on due to inadequate vision.

While pursuing electrical engineering degrees, he realized his strength was in building things. So he left academia and worked in a variety of vision and optical startups, eventually leading significant teams.

Many people who could benefit skip their eye exams, and for more than a decade entrepreneurs have been trying smartphone based eye exams and online eyeglass sales, often with virtual try-ons. But those have been failures. The exam interface is too complex and burdensome, and people want to try on their glasses at retail.

Eyebot is an automated eye exam designed to produce a prescription at the point of sale, i.e., retail stores. It takes 90 seconds and doesn't require the person being examined to do anything special. Eyebot has developed its own technology and eventually plans to expand beyond the basic exam to more advanced screening for things like glaucoma.

But Matthias stresses that Eyebot has no intention of taking away the jobs of eye care professionals.

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