New App Designed to Use Artificial Intelligence to Reduce Digital Eye Strain

Robin Kuriakose, MD, a fellow physician in cornea and refractive surgery at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital, has launched SightKick, a new MacOS application designed to reduce digital eye strain: SightKick. 

Digital eye strain is a growing problem as we are spending more time than ever in front of screens (tablets, computers, cellphones). While a healthy blink rate is around 15-20 times per minute, estimates show screen use drops this by over half. This results in an unhealthy tear film, which results in commonly experienced symptoms such as dry eye, burning, eye strain or fatigue, blurriness, redness, or even headaches.

SightKick uses artificial intelligence to detect when your blink rate is down, gently nudging you to look 20 feet away from your screen, while blinking for 20 seconds. It also gives you a reminder every 20 minutes—aiming to help restore eyes’ natural tear film and keep them refreshed.

The app works silently in the background and has customizable features to make it your own (change the frequency of reminders, the location, etc). It includes Statistics on board so users can see how often your blink rate has been in the unhealthy or healthy range. By encouraging users to blink at specified intervals, particularly when blink rate is low, SightKick helps to reduce digital eye strain. 

The app is available for download on the Apple Mac Store and is free for use.