Amblyo: Lazy Eye Training

32 exercises for lazy eye, including two-eye games that need red-cyan glasses. Progress tracking that says "no clear change" when that is the truth.

Amblyo is a daily eye-training app for amblyopia — the condition usually called lazy eye, where one eye's vision stays blurred because the brain has learned to lean on the other one.

It is an exercise app, not a replacement for eye care. It doesn't replace an eye examination, glasses, patching, or anything an optometrist or ophthalmologist recommends.

WHAT'S IN IT

32 exercises across three groups:

• 14 single-eye exercises that need nothing but your screen — spotting faint patterns, reading tiny gaps in rings, judging which line is offset, following a moving dot, reading progressively smaller print.

• 10 two-eye exercises that need a cheap pair of red-cyan glasses. These are the ones that can't be done with one eye at all: a shape hidden in speckle that only appears when both eyes fuse, a game where one eye sees the ball and the other sees the paddle, a search where each eye carries half the clue.

• 8 games built on the same mechanics, for children who won't sit through the plain versions.

DIFFICULTY THAT FOLLOWS YOU

Every exercise runs a staircase: three right answers make it harder, one wrong answer steps back. Within a couple of minutes it settles where you're right about four times in five — uncomfortable, and the level where the visual system actually adapts.

MEASURED IN REAL SIZES

The app asks you to measure your screen once and set your viewing distance. Every stimulus is then specified as an angle rather than a number of pixels, so a difficulty level means the same thing on a phone and on an iPad. A few exercises can't show their hardest levels on a small screen, and the app says so rather than pretending.

PROGRESS YOU CAN TRUST

The Progress screen won't draw a line until there's enough data to support one. It needs at least eight practice days of an exercise before claiming a direction, and it says "no clear change yet" when the numbers don't separate from noise. That's less encouraging than a rising graph, and it's the only version worth having.

If two four-week blocks pass with no measurable change, the app says so and suggests seeing an eye care professional — even though that's against its own retention interest.

SAFETY

• Sessions are capped, and shorter for younger age groups. • Breaks are offered part-way through; "my eyes feel tired" ends a session immediately without losing progress. • Nothing flickers faster than 3 Hz and no exercise inverts the whole screen's brightness, for anyone photosensitive.

PRIVACY

Everything stays on your device. There is no account, no server, and nothing is uploaded. Delete All Data in Profile removes every profile, session and measurement, and there is no cloud copy to restore from.

WHAT IT DOESN'T CLAIM

No exercise in this app has been shown to restore normal vision, and no app can promise that. Getting better at a trained task is a real result, and it is not the same as no longer having amblyopia. The evidence badge on every exercise says how well supported that specific exercise is, including the ones where the honest answer is "limited".

SUBSCRIPTION

Free: one exercise and the Balance check-in. Full access: $2.99/week, $9.99/month, or $29.99/year, covering up to 5 people.

Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/