Smartphone app Peek as accurate as charts for visual acuity testing

Smartphone eye testing app Peek (Portable Eye Examination Kit) is as accurate as traditional testing charts, according to new research carried out by its developers.

Peek, designed and developed by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the University of Strathclyde and the NHS Glasgow Centre for Ophthalmic Research, consists of a series of apps and a piece of hardware called Peek Retina. The new study focused on one of the apps, Peek Acuity and how it determined how clearly an individual sees.

Published in JAMA Ophthalmology, the results showed that tests carried out on 233 people in their own homes and repeated in eye clinics based in Kenya were as reliable as those from standard paper-based charts and illuminated vision boxes in testing rooms.