For many people, the most cherished sensory organs are their eyes. Much of the information in our surroundings is explicitly visual. Living with visual impairment brings about challenges most of us never consider.
For individuals living with central vision loss, recognizing faces, being able to read or see a screen is often not possible. Many unintended injuries, a feeling of loneliness and depression are associated with vision loss. Performing activities of daily living, requires the adoption of tools specifically designed for life without clarity of central vision.
eSight Eyewear has spent almost two decades investing and researching solutions for individuals living with central vision loss to enhance existing visual function and re-establishing functional vision for users.
Today, eSight provides a wearable device that provides an unprecedented improvement in several visual performance measures. The organization has helped remove the traditional barriers and facilitates advancement for its wearers in all levels of education, professional goals, and to participate in society more independently.
Inspired by this vision of eSight Eyewear, we at Insights Care got an opportunity to speak with Brian Beardsley, Interim CEO. Below is what he talks about the company.
A blend of Emotion and Passion
eSight eyewear was founded by a concerned brother of two sisters afflicted by Stargardt disease. It originally focused on finding solutions to Stargardt disease, the juvenile form of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) but its technology can be used for a variety of retina diseases impacting central visual acuity.
Until a cure is found, eSight creates medical technology to assist users, helping them experience functional vision with a visual acuity up to 20/20, allowing them to read, see faces, enjoy live events, or pursue hobbies once more. eSight 4 is the most advanced assistive device that facilitates the best visual acuity, unmatched mobility, all-day comfort, and ease of use to allow the user to do more.
eSight is passionate about enhancing the vision of individuals with central vision loss. The product is aimed at people living with central vision loss of 20/80 or more due to AMD and other pathologies who desire independence, mobility, and the opportunity to pursue interests at work, school, or leisure.
eSight believes that central vision loss should not prevent individuals from seeing new possibilities. They want to bring independence, improved quality of life, and enhanced vision to all those that have been impacted by central vision loss. However, the mission does not end purely with its vision.
By enhancing patients’ functional vision, improving their quality of life, and ability to perform tasks of daily living, eSight hopes to positively impact the physical and mental health of users and perhaps reduce associated indirect costs of vision loss.
Comprehensive Leadership
Brian Beardsley delivers a broad base of experience to his leadership role at eSight. After completing his US Air Force service, Brian leveraged his skills and experience to drive efficiencies, performance improvement, innovation, and capital project management for leading healthcare organizations in various roles of increasing responsibilities. Brian’s contributions encapsulated both national and global accountabilities.
Brian’s desire to continue to grow his leadership skills brought him to Teleflex Incorporated, where he increased his scope of responsibilities directing large teams within the production area. Brian continued to broaden his expertise by adding marketing to his resume as the Product Manager for Surgical Products at Teleflex.
With Brian’s strong analytical abilities, project management skills, supply chain experience, marketing insights, and proven leadership demonstrated, he transitioned to Gentex as Director of Business Development in 2016.
Brian discovered eSight through his efforts to identify healthcare technologies that fit the Gentex business development strategy. The alignment of both eSight and Gentex was quickly apparent. Brian was intimately involved in negotiating the two enterprise’s collaboration, announced in January 2022 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
As of March 2022, Brian has assumed the Chief Executive Officer role at eSight. The eSight strategy continues to shift towards a robust healthcare professional recommendation model. Brian’s experience and demonstrated skills are a natural fit to lead eSight into its next chapter of corporate growth and evolution.
Exponential Services
Unlike many assistive device technologies that allow people to perform sedentary tasks, eSight prioritizes the integration of mobility and ease of use as the design objective. eSight houses a high-speed, high-definition camera that captures everything the wearer is looking at. Advanced, clinically validated algorithms optimize and enhance the footage, which is then presented on two near-to-eye screens in real-time with stunning clarity.
The built-in trackpad allows the user to refine the image further through a full suite of zoom, contrast, and focus controls. As a completely mobile device, its eyewear does not obstruct the natural peripheral vision of the wearer.
As such, eSight4 does not negatively impact mobility or orientation. The device can be used momentarily when navigating for reading a street sign or price tag, or continuously for computer work, reading books, or enjoying a live event.
eSight delivers the technology through partnerships with healthcare professionals. When partner HCPs identify patients that may benefit from eSight, they can refer the patient to the eSight Telehealth program.
eSight will then ship a device to the potential user, set up a coaching session to help the user get familiar with the device, and suggest tasks that fit their activities of daily living, allowing the potential user to evaluate the device to ensure the device delivers a benefit. The trial period is usually one week, but the vision’s impact is almost immediate.
A word of Advice
When advising the budding entrepreneurs, Brian states that “eSight was founded by one passionately motivated person driven to find a resolution to his sisters’ visual impairment. That is how it starts. If you have the desire, the passion, and the motivation to find solutions to unmet needs, do not let challenges stand in the way of your innovation. Take one step at a time and engage with others that align with your cause.”
A Pathway to the Future
When talking about the roadmap ahead, Brian believes that it is crucial to take into consideration the advancement in technology. It creates endless possibilities to solve healthcare challenges. Aligning technology with unmet medical needs facilitates the acceleration of healthcare solutions to bring benefit to patients faster, safer, and with greater efficacy. Hence, it is symbiotic.
He further states that eSight is focused on raising awareness of its technology among the ophthalmology community that treats AMD patients. By creating partnerships between clinicians and eSight Telehealth, it plans to improve the quality of life of AMD patients by enhancing functional vision with wearable technology while the clinicians treat the underlying disease that is causing the decline in vision.
The organization is focused on patients with visual acuity of 20/80 to 20/400. Many of its users in this group can live independently, read, recognize faces, pursue hobbies, and maintain a functional vision for activities of daily living, including employment.
A word of Endorsement
Here are some of the testimonials of the user of eSight eyewear.
“It’s given me the chance to see the world all over again. I didn’t realize how much I lost.” – Jaclyn (wearer since 2021)
“eSight has given me a sense of independence that I don’t need to rely on anyone when I have the device with me” – Tony (wearer since 2018)
“To be able to be in the winner’s circle and have hundreds and hundreds of people applauding you, but seeing them and not just hearing them, that just made the experience far greater than what anybody could imagine.” – Sandra-Lynn (Special Olympics equestrian)
