Bionic Implants Can Go Obsolete And Unsupported, Too

When a piece of hardware goes unsupported by a company, it can be frustrating. Bugs may no longer get fixed, or in the worst cases, perfectly good hardware can stop working entirely as software licences time out. Sadly, for a group reliant on retinal implants from company Second Sight, the company has since stopped producing and supporting the devices that give them a crude form of bionic sight.

The devices themselves consist of electrodes implanted into the retina, which can send signals to the nervous system which appear as spots of light to the user. A camera feed is used to capture images which are then translated into signals sent to the retinal electrodes. The results are low-resolution to say the least, and the vision supplied is crude, but it gives users that are blind a rudimentary sense that they never had before. It’s very much a visual equivalent to the cochlear implant technology.

The story is altogether too familiar; Second Sight Medical Products came out with a cutting-edge device, raised money and put it out into the world, only to go bankrupt down the road, leaving its users high and dry. Over 350 people have the implants fitted in one eye, while one Terry Byland is the sole person to have implants in both his left and right eyeballs. Performance of the device was mixed, with some users raving about the device while others questioned its utility.

However, all the users of Second Sight implants are now on their own. Any failure or issue will go unrectified, as the company and its staff no longer exist to support or service the implants or associated hardware. For some, the implants still work. For others, like Barbara Campbell, the device simply powered down one day and has left her without sight ever since. Medical problems can crop up too – one patient was unable to get an MRI as doctors couldn’t secure information on the device after the company collapsed.

It’s a sobering tale of what can happen when a tech company goes out of business. It’s a story that bears thinking about for anyone taking on a medical device from a new, untested company. Video after the break.