You might not have to wait until 2019 to get your hands on a smart contact lens from Google.

The Google X team announced in 2014 that it developed a smart contact lens for measuring glucose levels in people with diabetes. It uses miniaturised electronics like chips, sensors, and a hair-thin antenna to test your tears for glucose. At the time, the team was also working toward embedding tiny LED lights, among other things, which would light up to notify you of low or high glucose.

Google said it hoped to launch the smart contact lens in five years, but here we are 1.5 years later, and a patent application has surfaced with potential designs for how Google could package a smart contact lens. The lens in the application not only looks like the one showed off last year but also measures glucose levels by analysing tears. All this indicates it might be closer to releasing than once thought.

Quartz suggested that Google wouldn't typically be thinking about how to package the product - which is supposedly in the research phase for consumers - but the internet giant has been speaking to the US Food and Drug Administration about possibly testing the lens.

The company was also awarded 44 patents and is waiting on another 53 involving its smart contact lens. We've contacted Google for more information about this latest patent as well as when the smart contact lens might be ready for consumers.

We'll update when we learn more.

READ: This is a smart contact lens from Google that measures glucose levels