Sponsored by IOT

By Deborah Kotob, ABOM

In IOT Free-Form Insight Parts 1 through 18, we learned about IOT’s research, wearer trials and many breakthrough free-form lens technologies. But did you know about the R&D, consulting, technological and marketing services that the IOT team of scientists, technicians and marketers provide to their industry partners, helping them bring innovative and technically excellent products to market? As pre-eminent experts in free-form ophthalmic lens design, design integration, calibration and free-form troubleshooting, they work closely with industry partners from the largest optical brands to the smallest independent laboratories.

Innovation as a service: IOT offers innovative services to industry partners who want a standout product and position in the market but need technical expertise to tackle radically different technological projects. IOT specialists collaborate in creating, adjusting and developing exclusive ophthalmic products, designs and formulas. In addition, the IOT team is at the disposal of industry partners to develop calculations to create any product that has to do with sight.

About the founders: In 2005, four years after Daniel Crespo completed his Ph.D. in Applied Optics, he returned to the university to pursue new research with his optics and optometry professor and thesis director, Jose Alonso, and his former mentor and collaborator in physics, Juan Antonio Quiroga. During a meeting, Alonso proposed a joint venture with Crespo and Quiroga. He recommended they utilize a new technology that would allow them to develop custom lenses and create any surface topography on the concave back surface of the lens. Now they could marry ophthalmic science with free-form design technology to develop state-of-the-art free-form lens designs.

Free-form: The state-of-the-art technology for calculating, designing and cutting customized ophthalmic lenses while minimizing oblique aberrations.

IOT technologies and calculations utilize the lens design software (LDS) IOT Free-form Designer®. Its powerful algorithms make it possible to calculate lenses in seconds, adapting them to the individual data of each wearer. When run, it performs the calculations on the lab’s computers, thus avoiding the use of remote systems that could slow down lens calculation. IOT Free-form Designer is a more efficient solution capable of performing each of the lab’s jobs in near real time. Its calculations generate all the files needed to create the complex surfaces manufactured in the lab.

IOT’s innovation four-part process cycle that includes a constant feedback loop:

  1. Detect potential: With the target goal of improving the wearer experience, the first part of the process is to detect a market gap or need. Then through IOT clinical trials, wearer visual needs are established. Additionally, the IOT think-tank and their industry partners and other industry professionals contribute ideas and data.
  2. Transform an opportunity into a product or a technology: With the data compiled, a hypothesis is formulated, and new technologies and tools are developed, scientific rigor is applied, and a prototype is created.
  3. Validation—prove it works: Validating a new product is done by conducting wearer trials. All of IOT’s clinical studies follow strict protocols under highly controlled conditions. And they are designed and executed by an experienced team of scientists, engineers and technical specialists, producing highly reliable results. Only when the wearer tests have been successful do they validate the product.
  4. Sharing findings: IOT is founded by scientists who believe that an essential part of the process is sharing the technical knowledge acquired with the scientific community. For this reason, they present their findings in scientific publications and at international optical conventions.

From concept to integration, IOT turns your ideas into real solutions for your business.

In summary: IOT scientists, in collaboration with their industry partners, aspire to be Engines of Change, revolutionizing free-form lens technologies and solutions. IOT is a place of thinkers and dreamers whose desire is to go beyond technical knowledge and skills. Their curious and restless minds will never stop looking for new ideas and better ways of doing things. At the core of every IOT scientist lies an innovative spirit that solves problems and offers creative solutions.