Multinational researchers developed the lens, which features a mesh sensor layer that can measure levels of light, temperature and even glucose in tears.
The latter has use beyond monitoring for diabetes, the team said, with complications of stroke and heart disease closely related to disorders of blood glucose regulation.
The design, the team have said, does not impair the wearer's vision or ability to blink, and could be adapted in future to facilitate retinal function tests as well.
The lenses could even be given power modules and antennas, potentially allowing the lens to transmit data wireless to a computer for analysis.
'Our ultra-thin sensor layer is different from the conventional smart contact lenses,' paper author and engineer Shiqi Guo of Harvard University told the Times.
These lens designs typically feature 'rigid or bulk sensors and circuit chips that are sandwiched between two contact lens layers and make contact with tear fluids via microfluidic sensing channels.'
In the new lens design, however, the serpentine sensor mesh contacts tears directly — comes with 'easy assembly, high-detection sensitivity, good biocompatibility and mechanical robustness,' Dr Guo added.
'Further, it doesn’t interfere with either blinking or vision,' he said.
'Our ultra-thin sensor layer is different from the conventional smart contact lenses,' paper author and engineer Shiqi Guo of Harvard University told the Times.
These lens designs typically feature 'rigid or bulk sensors and circuit chips that are sandwiched between two contact lens layers and make contact with tear fluids via microfluidic sensing channels.'
In the new lens design, however, the serpentine sensor mesh contacts tears directly — comes with 'easy assembly, high-detection sensitivity, good biocompatibility and mechanical robustness,' Dr Guo added.
'Further, it doesn’t interfere with either blinking or vision,' he said.
The lens is one of a number of efforts to develop a 'smart' contact lens — whether to monitor blood glucose levels or coming in the form of a soft robot that can allow the wearer to zoom in by blinking.
One design — from California-based start up Mojo Vision, and sporting a UK-built processor — features an tiny LED display that packs 300 pixels within half a square millimetre that can show content streamed to the wearer from their phone.
'We have to build something that shows you information that doesn’t distract you, helps you, goes away when you don’t need it and stays off when you don’t want it,' Mojo head of product Steve Sinclair told the Times.
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Matter.