Sunglasses with near-vision adjustment

Adaptive spectacles, comprising:

• a frame, comprising a front piece and temples connected to respective edges of the front piece;
• right and left electrically tunable lenses mounted in the front piece;
• communication circuitry disposed in the frame and configured to communicate over a wireless link with a mobile computing device in proximity to the adaptive spectacles;
• and
• control circuitry disposed in the frame and configured to apply control voltage waveforms to the electrically tunable lenses in order to set a refractive property of the electrically tunable lenses and to modify the control voltage waveforms in response to a command received over the wireless link by the communication circuitry from the mobile computing device.

A method for producing an electrically tunable lens, the method comprising:

• providing first and second optical phase modulators, each comprising:
• first and second transparent substrates in mutually parallel orientations;
• a liquid crystal layer contained between the first and second transparent substrates;
• a common electrode disposed on the first transparent substrate;
• an array of excitation electrodes, comprising parallel conductive stripes, disposed on the second transparent substrate;
• and
• an alignment layer disposed on an inner surface of at least the second transparent substrate and containing linear alignment structures perpendicular to the conductive stripes and in contact with the liquid crystal layer;
• and
• mounting the first and second optical phase modulators respectively on opposing first and second sides of a polarization rotator, which is configured to rotate a polarization of light passing through the polarization rotator by 90°, such that the conductive stripes in the second optical phase modulator are perpendicular to the conductive stripes in the first optical phase modulator.