Vivid Vision offers a virtual reality based treatment for lazy eye disorders. Optometrists have been able to use the company’s treatment in their practice since 2015; this week Vivid Vision announced a new offering for the hardware/software-based eye-treatment that extends lazy eye treatment to the home.

Founded by James Blaha in 2013, Vivid Vision (formerly called Diplopia) is a virtual reality treatment for lazy eye disorders—characterized by both eyes not cooperating normally to achieve sharp, binocular vision. The treatment—which pairs VR headsets with special software to help patient’s eyes learn how to work correctly together—is now available in more than 100 eye clinics, according to Vivid Vision.

This week the company announced the Vivid Vision Home offering which extends treatment into patient’s homes. This is still an optometrist-prescribed treatment, meaning you can’t simply download it for your home VR headset, however the in-home option allows for more convenient and flexible treatment, hopefully increasing the rate of success. Vivid Vision CTO Dr. Brian Dornbos calls the in-home treatment “a practice magnifier because it’s a great supplement for in-office treatment.”

Vivid Vision claims their treatment is effective for amblyopia, strabismus, and convergence insufficiency. It works by increasing visual stimulation to the weak eye, while decreasing stimulation in the dominant eye (this is achieved with relative ease in a VR headset thanks to the device naturally showing separate images to each eye). This is done under the guise of immersive VR games where the player sees important game cues in their weak eye, leading their brain to lean more heavily on the information coming from that eye. Here’s a look at how the games are played:

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A study on Vivid Vision’s VR lazy eye treatment, published back in June in the peer-reviewed BioMed Journal of Ophthalmology, finds positive preliminary results which “indicate the potential for a new treatment for adulthood amblyopia.” The VR-based treatment is an alternative to other lazy eye therapies like eye patches and eye drops.

Eye doctors offering the Vivid Vision Home treatment asses patients at their practice to see if the treatment is suitable, and, if so, prescribe the software-based treatment which can run on the Rift, Vive, and Gear VR headsets. Doctors can then remotely monitor the patient’s progress.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • I was born with a Lazy Eye and had corrective surgery as a child to correct it. This type of Medical #VR therapy is justification for anyone with this type of treatable condition to make the investment in Virtual Reality.

    • Emma

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  • Gerad Simon

    I love VR but my lazy eye(s) makes it so I never see “3D” effects in movies or VR. Perhaps I don’t see it IRL so I guess it doesn’t really matter? The eye that is lazy switches sometimes based on which direction I’m looking so standard cheap treatments haven’t worked. I can’t afford surgery so I just hope this new home version lowers the cost to correct my condition. When Vivid Vision originally released, there was 1 doctor in my state using it and they were charging $6,000 – $10,000 for the full treatment. Not in my price range. Sadly I will probably be seeing VR in 2D for a long while more, despite being in love with the tech.

    • Nathan

      It may be different for me since I’m only affected in my right eye but I’m able to see 3D depth in very well in VR, as well as 3D movies (stereoscopic only, cannot see anaglyph 3D) I wonder why you’re unable to see it.

  • Nerfherder

    So how should I go about finding an eye doctor that has one of these systems and can prescribe the software for their patients. I have Ambliopia (I have very minimal vision if I defocus from my right eye and focus in my left; I can see most and identify most common objects) and I’m right eye dominant

  • Frank Maro

    Recently I have found an awesome game (Lazy Eye Blocks) what helped on my lazy eye. Amazingly! I have had a wandering right eye for the last 25 yrs or more and it was worsening, and after 1 month of an hour a day doing this game the results are vast. I would like to share this with others too: http://lazyeyegames.com/
    I hope I could help