KALAMAZOO, MI — The eyesight of the CEO and head brewer of Norse Nectar Meadery got to the point that “for a year and a half there was nothing.”
Hunter Dodge, who was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy, lost eyesight in both eyes over the course of a few months in 2019. He described his vision as trying to look through a double pane of translucent shower glass.
“From a personal standpoint, I’m one of those guys that is all things creative,” Dodge told MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette. “I’m a custom bamboo fly rod builder, dealing with measurements down to the 10,000th of an inch. Everything is done with finite hand tools. I custom hand tie all my flies for fly fishing. I love to be out splitting wood, cutting firewood. Anything (to do with) shooting sports … all of that was gone.”
After two reconstructive cataract surgeries, Dodge’s vision improved to 60/20, still not good enough to drive or do anything else that drove him.
Not long ago, however, the mead maker/brewer was blessed with not only being able to see again through the use of a novel wearable device, eSight 4, that is reminiscent of Star Trek’s Geordi La Forge’s visor, but vision so good with the use of the device that he refers to himself as having “bionic eyesight.”
The visor, he said, magnifies his sight 24 times over, allowing him to read numbers off a house over 450 feet away or decipher 8-point font on a wall across the room. He can also watch deer and coyotes in the woods, while sitting on his back porch in Calhoun County’s East Leroy Township.
Not only can he watch the deer with the visor, but Dodge was able to begin hunting again by using the visor’s Bluetooth technology and connecting it to his scope. The visor, which functions by recording his surroundings and broadcasting them to a pair of internal OLED screens in real time, also has the capability to capture photos and video for later viewing.
“This is literally a Geordi La Forge situation,” he said, while demonstrating how Braille buttons on the side of the visor allow him to control zoom and contrast, along with change settings to put it in outdoor mode, indoor mode, reading mode or TV mode through the use of different filters. He can also control the settings through the use of a voice command system.
“I can’t even imagine what this would be like for someone who has dealt with vision problems their whole life,” he said. “When I first picked this up, it was totally surreal.
“Without it, I could see color, I could see your face. I could see you blink but you’re silhouetted with light behind you at the door. But I couldn’t recognize you from you until you got up close. Those kind of things are gone now.”
Dodge is one of over 3,000 people, mostly in Canada and the United States, who have benefitted from the use of eSight since the company’s first prototype was launched in 2013 by founder Conrad Lewis.
Lewis spent over three decades developing the product prior to launch in an attempt to help his two blind sisters, who both live with Stargadt’s Disease, see, according to the eSight website.
“The thing that drives me is the patient impact,” said Roland Matten, director of product marketing. “You have people who in some cases have complete loss of their central vision.
“They can’t read. They can’t watch movies. And in many cases they are told there’s nothing they can do, and then here’s this product that uses technology to enhance whatever remaining vision is still there and allows them to read, get their jobs back. It’s remarkable.”
Matten, who has spent 20 years in the ophthalmology field, said awareness of the product is still in its infancy, and while there are other products out there that use camera technology and electronic screens to facilitate enhancement of vision, many are steeped in virtual reality technology, which don’t allow the user to be mobile during use as their peripheral vision becomes completely occluded.
“With our product you are 100% mobile and able to live independently,” Matten said. “What eSight is really doing is helping individuals, as a whole, regain independent life so you can go back to work, you can go back to going grocery shopping by yourself because you can navigate the hallways.
“We’re treating vision and we’re treating individuals but we’re giving them and their families quality of life back.”
The company also provides eSight users with a personal coach, someone who has been through the same journey and has also overcome some of the perils of visual impairment with eSight, Matten said.
For Dodge, he said the coach factor has been huge, having someone to not only help talk him through any issues with his product but share tales of sight loss and learning to live with a different way of seeing.
“Without the eSight, I can’t use a screwdriver,” he said. “I can’t read the taps. I don’t like writing with it, but on a computer screen, I just put it in writing mode.
“I just can’t emphasize how cool this piece of equipment is. I’ve got everything back that I couldn’t do because of the vision after the eye surgeries.”
One of the only drawbacks of the product, at this time, is cost, which Dodge said ran him about $7,000.
Most insurance companies don’t cover it, Matten said, but Veterans Affairs insurance will cover it. The company also works with fundraising sights like GoFundMe to help members of the eSight community who can’t afford to pay for its devices.
For more information, visit esighteyewear.com.
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