Eye health apps: the best for our eyes!

Smartphones may be the main cause of eye strain for your customers — but they can also become their best ally in taking care of their eyes. By 2025, the French will spend an average of 4.6 hours a day in front of a screen , representing 29% of their non-sleep time , a rate that doubles the risk of myopia and worsens dry eye. Faced with this reality, a new category of mobile applications has emerged: those dedicated to eye health. Here's an overview of the best ones according to Eyes-Road!

Digital fatigue: anti-screen eye health apps

The 20-20-20 rule—taking a 20-second break every 20 minutes while focusing on an object 20 feet (6 meters) away—is now the basis of many preventative eye-tracking apps. Tools like Eye Care 20 20 20 (iOS/Android) automatically remind users to take these breaks and offer timed eye relaxation exercises.

In the same vein, f.lux (PC/Mac) and its native equivalent on iOS and Android (the famous Night Shift / Night Mode ) adapt the screen's color temperature to the time of day, reducing exposure to blue light in the evening — the impact of which on sleep and eye recovery is documented.

For more intensive use, Myopia.app ( Google Play ) monitors in real time the smartphone's usage distance, exposure time, and ambient light—with the option to create profiles for each family member. This tool, designed by optometrists, is particularly useful for children.

Train your eyes: visual rehabilitation on mobile

This is undoubtedly the most comprehensive category. Eyes + Vision (iOS/Android) currently offers 160 eye exercises covering amblyopia, myopia, hyperopia, strabismus, accommodation, and dry eye. The Gabor exercises—whose effectiveness on contrast sensitivity is recognized in the scientific literature—were enhanced in October 2024 with 16 new levels. The app also allows users to follow an orthoptist's recommendations and personalize their training program.

For amblyopia specifically, applications like GamE-blyopia (requires 3D glasses) offer to work on binocular vision through games — a playful approach that improves compliance in young patients.

Monitoring myopia: tools for families and professionals

In 2024, the French National Authority for Health (HAS) published new recommendations advocating for myopia screening from the age of 3. In this context, visual health apps dedicated to monitoring myopia are gaining importance. The aforementioned Myopia.app allows parents to track their child's digital habits, while professional tools like NovaSight (a digital therapeutic platform for clinical use) are designed directly for opticians and orthoptists to monitor and slow the progression of myopia in their practice.

These tools do not replace clinical examination — accurate diagnosis absolutely requires specialized equipment — but they constitute a relevant link between two consultations.

Understanding low vision: the Jules-Gonin Visions app

Launched in November 2024 at the Planète Santé Festival,Visions is an application developed by the Jules-Gonin Eye Hospital (Lausanne). Free and available in French, German, Italian, and English, it allows users to simulate in real time around twenty visual pathologies—AMD, glaucoma, cataracts, retinitis pigmentosa, etc.—and to visualize the stages of normal vision development in children.

Its appeal goes beyond mere curiosity: according to its developers, the application is much more than a fun simulator. It provides professionals with a tool for raising awareness about low vision and offers information to help understand visual pathologies and their development. For an optician, it's a unique client consultation tool : showing a patient's loved one live what the patient actually sees.

Accessibility and autonomy: apps for the visually impaired

For people with low vision, Lookout (Google, Android) and Seeing AI (Microsoft, iOS) use the smartphone's camera and artificial intelligence to read text, identify objects, recognize faces, and describe scenes. These tools extend daily independence and usefully complement corrective optical devices prescribed by doctors. Excerpt from the Seeing AI app[/caption]

Vision health apps: what they mean for opticians

These apps are obviously not intended to compete with the advice of an optician—they simply enhance it. Recommending Myopia.app to a concerned parent, suggesting Visions to explain AMD to a spouse, referring a patient to Yeux + Vision to complement their orthoptic rehabilitation: these are all simple actions that strengthen the relationship of trust and position the optician as a comprehensive expert in visual health—far beyond simply dispensing glasses. The only drawback: some of these apps may be developed only in English, limiting communication with patients.

Featured image credit: freestocks.org