‘We’re redefining eyewear on a really high level. I like to use a camera analogy: fixed focus, manual focus, and then autofocus. What we’re trying to do is autofocus’ – IXI's CEO on the tech behind CES 2026’s most exciting eyeglasses

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," noted Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law. We tech reporters like to trot the saying out when we’re impressed … but Wednesday afternoon in a hotel suite in Las Vegas, I saw something that helped me finally understand what Clarke was getting at.

On the table before me were an array of eyeglasses, sufficiently indistinguishable from the selection you might see from Warby Parker or Luxottica or on shelves in your local optician’s store. Baked into the frames was a remarkable technology that lets the lenses automatically change their focus based on whatever you're looking at. If it's near your eye, it will magnify for those of us who need readers. If it's far away, it will take the magnification away so you can see clearly.

It's the result of more than four years of technology magic ...