Google has developed a new kind of wearable device: a contact lens that will measure glucose in a person's tears.

According to the Associated Press, the lenses hope to do for diabetics what finger pricking does. If the lenses, among other technologically-advance glucose-monitoring devices in production, are successful, millions of people with diabetes will no longer need to jab themselves 10 times a day in the finger.

Google said its lenses are at least five years from being available to consumers and will likely be a part of a new wave of devices that can measure a person's glucose sans finger pricking.

The lenses are also part of a new wave of prototype products developed over the past 18 months in their candlestine Google X lab. The lab has produced the Google Glass, the driverless car and Project Loon, weather balloons that float in the air delivering Internet access to unconnected areas of the world.

"You can take it to a certain level in an academic setting, but at Google we were given the latitude to invest in this project," one of the lead researchers, Brian Otis, told the AP. "The beautiful thing is we're leveraging all of the innovation in the semiconductor industry that was aimed at making cellphones smaller and more powerful."

Google is making their glucose-measuring contact lenses public for the first time since the project began years ago at the University of Washington. American Diabetes Association board chair Dwight Holing said the device will need to prove to be accurate, but that he is glad to see scientists take a new approach to the technology.

"People with diabetes base very important health care decisions on the data we get from our monitors," he told the AP.

Other devices in production meant to measure glucose are a similar contact lens made by NovioSense, a thumb cuff made by OrSense and special tattoos and saliva sensors. In 2001, the FDA approved a wristwatch, but consumers said the way the device used small electric currents to draw fluid from their skin was painful.

Google informed University of North Carolina diabetes researcher Dr. John Buse of the lens last week. He told the AP the lens has plenty of chances to be a bust, but its potential is huge.

"This has the potential to be a real game changer," he said, "but the devil is in the details."