Robotic Third Eye Looks Out for You When You’re in Smartphone Zombie Mode

Denying this reality or mocking it won’t change it. The fact remains: we’re addicted to our smartphones, so much so that a new term needed to be coined to refer to those of us who can’t even ditch the phone when walking down the street: “smartphone zombies.” Alternatively, they’re also known as “pedestrian zombies.”

Whether you regard this relatively new behavior with humor or scorn, it does pose serious challenges to local authorities. Put it simply, smartphone zombies are more prone to accidents than the rest of pedestrians, and for very obvious reasons: they won’t look up from their phones even when crossing the street.

Past attempts at mitigating the negative effects of this new reality have included creating special walkways for pedestrian zombies, special lighting for crossings, and even apps that would alert them of the need to look up and pay attention immediately. Laugh if you will, but this new reality requires a solution that starts from the premise of acceptance.

And here’s where the Third Eye comes in. It’s spelled with capitals because we’re not dealing with the mystical and esoteric concept of the invisible eye that offers perception beyond ordinary sight. This Third Eye is very literal: a robotic eye that you glue to your forehead and that keeps an eye out for you when you’re in full smartphone zombie mode.

The Third Eye is the idea of industrial design student Minwook Paeng, as part of his Innovation Design Engineering degree at London’s Royal College of Art and Imperial College. It’s a half satirical, half dead-serious take on the new evolution of mankind, with the rise of what Paeng calls Phono Sapiens: the Homo Sapiens permanently glued to the smartphone, with a deformed spine and neck.

The Third Eye does exactly what you think it does. It’s a plastic eyeball with a plastic eyelid, a gyroscope and an ultrasonic sensor, and a speaker. Created with the Arduino open-source electronics platform, the plastic eyeball is glued to the forehead—because that’s where the other third eye also goes.

When the gyroscope detects the wearer’s head is lowered at an angle, the plastic eyelid comes off, allowing the sensor to detect distances. Should an object come into the wearer’s path, the Third Eye emits a loud noise, alerting them to look up. If the wearer is looking ahead, the plastic eyelid covers the sensor, protecting it.

As noted above, the Third Eye is a satirical solution to a very real problem. But it could be a reality one day, Paeng says in a chat with Dezeen. “The smartphone has permeated into modern life so deeply that it's impossible to deny the evolution of phono sapiens,” he says. “I hope that the act of ironically pointing out what we are doing with our smartphones can help people to take time for self-reflection.”

That said, Paeng accepts and embraces the changing reality we’re living and, this way, also offers a possible solution to its downsides. If you think about it, a gadget like this would make sense: it would allow Phono Sapiens to continue as before while keeping him safe from incoming cars, other pedestrians, or even himself. Sure, he’d look strange, to say the least, with that thing glued to his forehead, but our perception of it might change in time.