A Wearable Robotic Third Eye That Alerts People to Look Up From Their Phones to Avoid Obstacles

Minwook Paeng, a South Korean industrial designer who is part of the Innovation Design Engineering program at Imperial College London, has created a wearable robotic “third eye” that alerts wearer of to look up from their phones in order to avoid oncoming obstacles.

When an obstacle of any kind is near, the eye buzzes in order to make the wearer look up and where they’re going. Paeng stated that while the product is being developed, it was designed with a certain amount of irony in order to address the absurdity of smartphone addiction.

The third eye is its first evolution. We can’t take our eyes off of our smartphones while walking. That’s why we evolved to have a third eye. This eye moves separately from the rest of the eyes and it opens when our previous eyes are looking at a smartphone. This project is not just a common product design, but more of an ironic or critical design.