Lensare

Hi, my name is Mark. I am the inventor and solo founder behind Lensare. Heres a bit more about me:​

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Where I started

I was born in New Zealand, and grew up in a city called Dunedin in the South Island.

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Ever since I was a kid, I have been designing and building things. ​My very first project I embarked on was a Solar Powered Autonomous Rover inspired by NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover.

Because I was new to technology, from ages 12-15 I worked on this rover until it eventually completed its final mission traveling a total of 55.4km on purely solar energy.

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This helped me to learn what I would want to do later in life​​, as well as helped me learn the basics in 3D modeling, electronics, coding and the design iteration process. ​​​

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My background in Product Design
Product Design was first introduced to me as a new subject in my first year at high school. It was a good blend of modern development processes and design techniques.

 

Over the next 5 years, Product Design helped me put a name to what I defined as "designing and creating" and it was the discipline that I would want to continue to develop.

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From there I went to the University of Canterbury to study a Bachelors of Product Design majoring in Industrial Design and minoring in Entrepreneurship.

I am studying there currently and have almost completed my first year of my three year degree.

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Developing Lensare

Now that you know a bit more about me, lets talk Lensare.

Lensare has been in the works for almost 2 years now.​ Its been a new set of challenges that has tested me as a designer and forced me to take new approaches to problems. 

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The idea and functionality behind Lensare was my own concept that I developed. At first I was skeptical that there were no products like Lensare, but research showed nothing existed with this concept.

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My goal as a product designer and entrepreneur is build things that makes peoples lives easier and better. To me, Lensare was an amazing opportunity to potentially improve millions of peoples lives.

 

On top of that, being quite technically orientated, Lensare was (and still is) a very interesting project to me and I wanted to push this technology to the limit.​​

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Main Challenges​

​The main challenge with developing Lensare was to get a working MVP (minimum viable product).

Essentially I needed a working prototype to prove that this whole concept/idea was possible.

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This was challenging because I had limited resources to work with, and I needed to get all the components (Light sensors, Microcontrollers, Lenses etc) working seamlessly together.

It needed to be seamless because for Lensare to protect an individual, it needs to detect light and darken within mere milliseconds.

 

And if all of this was not enough, it had to be in a glasses form factor which severely limits space for electronic components.

Over the following year, I tackled these design challenges with the use of rapid prototyping, trailing electronic components, and refining code.

 

This led to Lensare V1 which could darken in less than 20 milliseconds. 

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My Vision/goals​

​The goal for Lensare is to make the most unobtrusive and effective product possible.

 

Lensare should feel, and be a normal pair of glasses 99% of the time, but also a potential life saver for that small 1% when you most need it.

 

Lensare V2 is most of the way there, but improvements need to be made to create the most effective product possible.​

I am expecting to complete Lensare V3 and get peoples hands on it by the end of 2025.