> Tower Optical began in a Norwalk, Connecticut, machine shop in 1933, and remained in the same family until 2025.

The article doesn't go into too much detail beyond this snippet, but yeah, the original family business was sold to a cohort of investors in 2025[1]. The retrofit was outsourced to a European firm to add the tap-to-pay functionality, so I guess there's nothing left of the original manufacturing business.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/business/entrepreneurship/tourist-binocu...