Development of a Wearable Humidifier for the Eyes

Dry eye has become a common and chronic eye disease in the society especially in older adults. Dry eye symptoms are caused by insufficient amount of tears to lubricate and moisture the eye. People experiencing dry eye may feel irritated, scratchy, pain and redness of the eye. Dry and windy conditions, insufficient blinking and long term wear of contact lenses are among the main causes of dry eye symptoms. The most common supplement for natural tears production is the preservative-free artificial tears solution and eye drops. Problem arise when these conventional methods does not cure dry eye effectively as it is inconvenient for older people with constraint hand movement to apply the eye drop periodically in specific time period. Therefore, this project is carried out to understand the dry eye disease and to provide a better solution for the dry eye disease by developing a wearable eye humidifier to increase small area humidity level in proximity to the eye. The project development is breakdown into stages to design and develop the ultrasonic transducer, drive circuit, solenoid valve, Arduino microcontroller, timer circuit and water tank to be integrated into a working prototype model. The ultrasonic transducer converts water droplets into mist particles and the solenoid valve is used to control the flow of water. The Arduino microcontroller provides timing control for the humidification process. With the wearable eye humidifier prototype model, testing are carried out on three different session a day which is morning, afternoon and night to determine the suitable timing interval for the humidification process to take place. From the testing, the suitable timing interval for the humidification process is 1 hour 30 minutes interval in the afternoon session and 2 hours interval for the morning and night session. The wearable eye humidifier is able to increase small area humidity level in proximity to the eyes and thus provide a better solution for dry eye disease.