I am a born and raised native New Yorker. In 2017, my wife of 25 years was diagnosed with dry eye. It sounds like something simple; however, the symptoms are very painful. She felt like there was sandpaper in her eyes. The doctor explained that the best solution to relieve dry eye is to apply heat to the eyelids. We were told to purchase a gel pack that gets heated in a microwave for 30 seconds. We purchased a gel pad as well as a microwave oven. We would heat up the gel pad as instructed, but the heat would quickly dissipate.

On our next visit, I explained to the doctor that the heat was not consistent, and his answer was to go back to the microwave every three minutes and reheat the pad… I quickly realized that there had to be a better solution out there, but there wasn’t. That very evening I sat down and started working on a prototype that would eventually turn out to be the USB electric heated dry eye mask.