Apps claim to improve your vision?

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Do you want to sharpen your eyesight? Your smartphone may be the answer.

New apps are coming out that claim to improve your vision, but how effective are they?

Phillip Sweeney always has his black pair of reading glasses sitting on top of his head. He needs them to read up close. But what if you could exercise your eyes and sharpen your vision all while staring at a small screen?

That’s exactly what brand new apps like GlassesOff and Ultimeyes claim to do.

“I’d rather wear my glasses that fart around with an app,” said Sweeney.

Ultimeyes uses game like exercises to re-train the way your brain interprets things, like blurry images.

“I think there is some truth in some of them,” said Dr. Eric Eiselman with Eye Centers of Florida.
In his experience, exercising your eyes cannot actually sharpen your vision.

“There is definitely exercises to make sure that your eyes look at the exact moment, it doesn’t undershoot or overshoot, it hits it right on the money,” said Eiselman.

Some of these new eye exercise apps even claim they can work so well that you can throw out your reading glasses.

“It’s great that we are looking in to apps,” said Dr. Surbhi Bansal at Florida’s NSU School of Optometry.
Bansal says these apps are so new its almost impossible to tell if they really can work.

“Right now there is no research that either proves or disproves what they are saying,” she said.