The One Product You Should Buy Online: Eyeglasses

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-one-product-you-should-buy-online_us_598e1777e4b0ed1f464c0aac

by walterbell • 9 years ago

136 97 9 years ago

My boyfriend bought his last pair of glasses from go-optic.com, and the experience has been a good one. First time online buy as well.

Some caveats:

* We picked the frames from a physical store first and didn't buy there. Sort of dodgy of us, but their prices were insane.

* We tried to do the pupil measurement on our own, but every time we tried, we got a different number. So he went to a optical shop to have the measurement done. The shop did it for free and we were taking advantage of the brick and mortar presence.

So yes, appears to be completely doable but I don't think we would have been happy with the final product had we not had access to a local shop.

dorfsmay2• 9 years ago

For pupillary distance, optometrist typically do it for an extra 5$, but an easy way to do it is to hold a ruler with clear mm marks on it beside your head level with your eyes and have somebody take a picture, then measure the distance with a compass.

rabboRubble2• 9 years ago

We tried this, watched all the how-to videos, etc. I just couldn't take a reproducible measurement. We tried maybe 6-8 measurement attempts, and the results were all different.

At this point, I gave up. Of course I was doing something wrong. Without a repeated measurement I didn't have confidence to base an expensive purchase on my work.

CalChris• 9 years ago

Similar to buying eyeglasses online is buying lenses online. If you like nerding out on materials and optics, this can be kind've interesting.

First, get familiar with your lens choices.

  Drivers
  Readers

  Single Vision
  Progressives
  Bifocals

  Clear
  Tinted
  Transitions

  Materials
    Trivex (I'm a big fan of Trivex).
    Polycarbonate
    Your prescription must fit in the material's range

http://www.eyeglasslensdirect.com/

I have Trivex single vision readers and tinted Trivex single vision drivers. I'm near sighted and I told my optometrist to give me a reader prescription set for laptop distance. I've also settled on a frame, Flexon 623.

I imagine I could spend a ton on personalized prescriptions but my normal prescription is insanely good. I'm lucky. Personalized prescriptions (free form, ...) are great for people with difficult prescriptions but unnecessary for the common case.

walterbell20• 9 years ago

Trivex is great and 1.60 is a close second in trade-off between optical quality, thinness and impact resistance. For lenses stronger than -5 diopters, a smaller frame eye width (< 45mm) will minimize lens edge thickness, http://www.youngeroptics.com/pdf/trilogy/Trilogy_Monograph.p...

Zenni (China lab) has Trivex lenses for $20/pair.

awareBrah• 9 years ago

Went to the opthamologist this year cause I could tell my vision was worsening.

After all was said and done they ushered me into their eyeglasses store which was physically connected to their office. A nice friendly man told me the frames start at 299 and go up from there.

I said thanks man with this eye exam I can barely open my eyes so I’ll come back.

Got two pairs of awesome glasses from Zenni for $55 total.

I’ve read this is online movement is destroying the career of optometrists. Also the eyeglasses scam also seems to be connected to Luxottica which is a well known sunglasses scam also. I will continue to buy from Zenni

morganvachon3• 9 years ago

A coworker once worked as a technician at a chain optometrist's office. He swears the frames from Zenni and other online retailers are substandard and will fall apart, but my experience has been otherwise. He gave me one of his old frames (never worn by him beyond initial fitting) to save me money on a visit once, they were Ralph Lauren or something like that and he claimed retail cost was over $500 before lenses. They lasted all of six months before they literally fell apart on my face. I found a replacement of the same model in a different color on eBay used for $50. After cleaning them and swapping my lenses over, I got another three months before they failed as well.

The ones I have now were $70, are more attractive, more comfortable, and so far have lasted over a year. I did get them at the optometrist but they were on clearance and were only a few dollars more than if I'd gotten the same ones online at Zenni.

kstrauser• 9 years ago

My Warby Parker glasses feel insubstantial, but they've been unfailingly durable and I'm confident they'll last at least as long as my prescription (or my desire to have a different look). I don't expect them to be a lifetime purchase.

pavel_lishin• 9 years ago

My Zennis have lasted nearly a year, despite a protracted attempt by a toddler to yank them off my face, throw them across the room, or otherwise destroy them.

Even if they did fall apart after six months, it's more affordable to replace them than to buy new Ralph Lauren or whatever frames for $300 apiece.

(How about not letting your toddler run amok all over your face, Dad-of-the-Year? naysayers might criticize. And they might be right, but you can't win every battle.)

syedkarim• 9 years ago

I have a pair of $6 Zenni glasses that have lasted five years. No sign of wear and I wear them regularly for driving.

coldtea• 9 years ago

A coworker once worked as a technician at a chain optometrist's office. He swears the frames from Zenni and other online retailers are substandard and will fall apart, but my experience has been otherwise.

BS, the expensive and the inexpensive ones are all made with the same techniques in the same factories across brands.

jdietrich3• 9 years ago

He swears the frames from Zenni and other online retailers are substandard and will fall apart

Even if it's true, so what? Glasses online literally cost 80-90% less than in a brick-and-mortar store. Even if you break several pairs a year, you're still saving money.

If you simply must buy branded glasses, you can buy those online at a hefty discount over the brick-and-mortar price.

interfixus• 9 years ago

Counterstory: I went to my local optician for a check-up. He's fourth or fifth generation: Shop's been there, same address, since the eighteen hundreds (and so far, they haven't seen the need to join a chain, or to start one, for that matter). I got the works. Very thorough test of my ocular abilities. Yes, I needed new reading glasses. But no, he didn't really think he would sell me any. "Listen, you'll be fine with some cheap over-the-counter stuff. I haven't really got any in your particular strength - try the bookstore across the street". Me: "Well, in that case, I should pay you for the test". "Nah, don't think about it. Come back when you need real glasses". And you know, I do believe I shall.

Consultant32452• 9 years ago

I generally use my vision insurance to get my vision test and daily wear glasses. Then I go online and purchase prescription sunglasses. In my anecdotal experience the fit and finish of "brand name" glasses is better. However, I've never had any of my "cheap" glasses fail in any way.

apotheosis• 9 years ago

An ophthalmologist is not the same as an optometrist. I think you only went to your optometrist.

syphilis2• 9 years ago

I would never buy glasses from a store again unless the prices were competitive with the online prices. That said, I've bought lots (>5) of terrible glasses online. Plastic ones break, sometimes the fit is bad, sometimes the lenses are very distorted especially with my prescription, or they're just plain ugly once you put them on. But the price can't be beat so I eat the lemons. Contact lenses are much more reliable since you can buy the exact same product, though last I heard price fixing was being enforced.

gregpilling• 9 years ago

quote from the article: "Even using precise measurements, which we’ll get to in a second, your new virtually-bought glasses can turn out to be uncomfortably tight, annoyingly loose or simply ill-fitting, regardless of the stated measurements"

Which was my experience. Apparently I have an extra wide head, so even the widest frames didn't fit right. Since I only need the glasses for seeing details, it is not that big of a problem, but I spent a lot of time measuring my head and eyes to get a bad result.

Maybe Apple will build a 3D head modeling software into the IphoneX and revolutionize glasses! a new app idea!

In the meantime, I just increased font size on my monitor!

walterbell20• 9 years ago

The best way to determine fit is with a physical frame as a starting point. Even 1mm can make a difference. If you don't want to visit a local store to try on frames, you can buy cheap (non-stylish) frames on eBay for less than $10. Once you find a few frames that fit, use those frame measurements as search criteria. Frame eye width + bridge width should be ~= PD, otherwise lens will not be centered and one lens edge will be thicker than the other.

Warby Parker has physical stores where you can try on frames and they are happy for you to purchase from them online. They have an app that uses the iPhone X to measure your head, but Apple limits the camera depth resolution, so it's not much more useful than sending a photo to a good optician.

When you said the widest frames "did not fit right" and you got "a bad result", what exactly do you mean: poor vision from the glasses, slid down your nose, temples too tight/short/long, did not look good? With the current trend in oversized glasses, there are more wide frames available than narrow ones. Online frame sizes can be confusing because of "base curves", so two frames that say 55-20-140 can have different widths. EyeBuyDirect and Zenni (and likely others) provide actual frame widths, although these are sometimes off by a few mm. Frames with nose pads are easier to adjust.

nickjj3• 9 years ago

Do these online places include prescription lenses in their low quotes, because that's where the bulk of the cost is in most cases.

I picked up glasses at Costo in 2016 and the cost was $237 which included an exam. Here's the break down:

- $49 eye exam

- $39 for the frames

- $149 for the prescription lenses

- $0 hard case and a microfiber cloth (it comes as a bonus)

I paid a premium for the lenses because they are of the light weight material that's also scratch resistent and turn into sunglasses when exposed to UV light. The transition lens coating alone was like $49 but since I go outside a lot it's totally worth it.

sjburt• 9 years ago

Yes. I recently bought frames from Zenni and paid $30 total, including an upcharge for an oleophobic AR coating (something I have not seen available offline).

These were 1.50 index cr-39 which is fine for my light prescription. But higher index lenses are only a few dollars more.

nickjj3• 9 years ago

That seems incredibly cheap (in a good way). Almost too good to be true but I'll definitely look into that for my next pair.

I can't find my receipt so I don't know my exact prescription but I know it's single vision and I'm near sighted.

I'm not sure if I'd consider my prescription light, but I was eligible for the super thin lenses if that says anything.

wlesieutre• 9 years ago

Yes, I bought a pair of prescription sunglasses glasses and a pair of regular prescription from Zenni for less than $100 total.

walterbell20• 9 years ago

Except for CR-39 (1.50), all plastics lenses (e.g. high index, poly, trivex) block 100% of UVA and UVB light, so any UV-blocking coating is unnecessary, https://www.eyecarebusiness.com/issues/2012/august-2012/a-lo...

It's also good for your eyes to have a small amount of UV exposure, at least a few mins per day, so take off your glasses for short periods when outside. Everyone who does not wear glasses and is not wearing sunglasses 100% of the time is receiving some UV exposure.

nickjj3• 9 years ago

Do you have any scientific links which states having occasional UV exposure to your eyes is a good thing?

pcurve• 9 years ago

That breakdown makes a lot of sense to me, with bulk of the cost going towards the lens.

leggomylibro3• 9 years ago

I had trouble reading the whole article on mobile; screen-eating ads and forced scrolling to the bottom.

But what I read just reads like a lengthy ad.

Also, "only"? I know it's HuffPo, but come on. How about electronics? Where am I going to find a few 74-series logic chips in person? How about materials like PTFE? None of my local plastics stores carry it.

Sorry, am I sounding like an ass? I feel like that was sort of an ass-y thing to write. But these 'submarine' pieces really bug me.

morganvachon3• 9 years ago

"I had trouble reading the whole article on mobile"

I had trouble reading it period. It was overflowing with superfluous flowery prose, in other words[1], it was too wordsmith-y for its own good. It's a HuffPost piece about the advantages of buying glasses online in 2017, it doesn't have to sound like a tabloid magazine article from 1896 to draw in the modern reader.

[1] It was at a point early in the article where the author felt the need to say "in other words" and provide a dumbed down version of his previous sentence that I decided to stop reading for my own sanity. Next time, leave the thesaurus on the shelf please.

StavrosK• 9 years ago

Not only that, but his "synonyms" weren't really. A nose isn't a proboscis, and "bespectacled avoidance" isn't avoidance of wearing glasses, it's an avoidance that is, itself wearing glasses. Absurd.

lisper2• 9 years ago

But what I read just reads like a lengthy ad.

What would a positive product review that didn't read like a lengthy ad look like?

leggomylibro3• 9 years ago

That's sort of the problem with modern advertising, isn't it? Ideally advertising would earnestly connect people with products that might improve their lives. No harm, no foul.

But the industry is currently so ubiquitously predatory and deceptive that any sort of advertising sets off blaring klaxons in my head. At least, when/if I recognize it as an ad.

mark-r• 9 years ago

My last few eyeglasses have come from Walmart. They know how to avoid the monopolist's prices, ironically. I got a pair of their cheapest frames, which were the ones I would have wanted anyway, with basic plastic lenses and no coatings. Total price I believe was $30.

walterbell20• 9 years ago

Most near-sighted developers would benefit from single vision readers with a focal length and PD (~3mm less than binocular distance PD) customized for the distance of their desktop monitor, laptop or tablet. Now that a complete pair of glasses can be obtained online for $20-$60, there is little risk in trying "computer glasses" and seeing how your eyes feel.

Some optometrists add +1.00 to your distance prescription to obtain your computer prescription. Some perform a separate eye test at laptop/monitor distance. There's also a calculator here: http://computerglassesrx.com

If you wear contacts for hours at the computer, you can try cheap drugstore reading (plus) glasses over your contacts, close to the +value from above calculator. Once you know what strength works for you, buy better quality readers from sites like readers.com, peepers.com, etc. Or make custom ones with your near PD and preferred frame at Zenni, EyeBuyDirect, etc.

This iOS app can help with PD measurement, remember to hold the phone at the same distance as your laptop/monitor: PD Meter | Pupil Distance Measure by GlassifyMe by GlassifyMe https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pd-meter-pupil-distance-meas...

EGreg• 9 years ago

Are you saying that, using this app, I can get a prescription and order glasses online with it?

And are you also saying that a lower dioptri prescription for starting a foot away from computer monitors is more healthy than with eg full correction contact lenses?

walterbell20• 9 years ago

Ideally, your optometrist will provide you with a computer prescription for no charge, at the same time they provide you with a distance prescription. If you have a recent prescription, call and ask them for a computer prescription. Their recommendation will likely be “close” to the website linked above, rounded to the nearest 0.25 diopter.

The app is only to measure your PD, which is needed to order lens and find a good-fitting frame. Ideally, you would pay to obtain your PD from a local optician using a pupilometer or other instrument. After Luxottica merges with Essilor in 2017, Lenscrafters may start providing local fitting for Essilor-owned online sites like FramesDirect, EyeBuyDirect. Warby Parker has already unified their online/offline services.

Yes, a lower prescription (which provides 20/20 vision at the target focal plane) is always more healthy than the stronger prescription needed for driving and other distance viewing. For one thing, text will be bigger.

Until the advent of affordable, quality online eyeglasses, most people could not afford dedicated computer glasses, so it was not widely promoted by optometrists. If you ask, they will tell you. Now, most developers can afford developer glasses.

lobster_johnson• 9 years ago

Every optometrist I've spoken to recommends using reading glasses (usually around +1) when using computers or when reading, even with properly corrected contact lenses.

Personally I use multifocal contacts (the concentric kind), which help a lot with near vision, but I still use reading glasses.

Stratoscope• 9 years ago

I heartily second the advice to get single vision lenses for computer use. I've been using them for decades.

They're not just for near-sighted computer users; anyone whose vision is less than perfect will benefit. I don't recommend just adding +1.00 to a distance prescription, though. That may get you close enough if you're young and your eyes are still able to focus at different distances.

I'm old enough that my eyes have lost most of that ability, plus I have astigmatism. So my computer prescription has to be spot on. Even an inch or two off will make it uncomfortable.

I bring my ThinkPad to my optometrist at each visit so we can use their test lenses to see how the prescription will look.

I use a 24" 4K/UHD monitor in the office in portrait mode next to the ThinkPad 14" WQHD, with both displays active and using the ThinkPad keyboard and TrackPoint as usual. I put the second monitor at the same distance from my eyes as the laptop display, on an AmazonBasics (Ergotron) monitor arm so it's easy to adjust.

Both are IPS high-DPI monitors around 200 dpi. It is glorious to be able at my age to easily see the difference that high DPI makes, thanks to the computer glasses.

Portrait mode is really nice when combined with the landscape laptop display. An entire PDF page or other lengthy doc fits on the screen readably, or an editor window with 100 lines of code visible.

I also have a pair of progressive lenses for all other use - including reading things on my phone or other devices and in print. Progressives are terrible for computer use, though. I cringe when I see people using them and tilting their head back and moving their entire head around to get part of the computer screen into the tiny sweet spot at the bottom of the lenses. OTOH they work fine for phone use, Kindle or book/magazine reading, etc.

I've always gotten progressives with magnetic clip-on sunglasses. These come as a set with the frame and the matching clip-on. They are much nicer than the generic clip-on sunglasses that are made to work with any frame and literally clip on to them. The magnetics are getting hard to find, though. At my last optometrist visit a year ago we only found one Flexon model. But one was all I need!

I always wear aloha shirts or similar shirts with a breast pocket. If I'm out with the sunglasses on and go inside, I just snap off the sunglasses and put them in my shirt pocket facing outward. Don't need a case or pouch; the cotton shirt won't scratch the lenses, and the curve of the sunglasses fits the curve of my chest so I hardly notice they are in my pocket.

A separate pair of dedicated prescription sunglasses would be much less convenient.

ajryan• 9 years ago

The thing about portrait mode is that it changes the orientation of the subpixels, and a lot of apps don't support anything but horizontal R-G-B. Text antialiasing ends up with halos.

corecoder• 9 years ago

No matter how fashionable – or not – we consider ourselves, we all try to avoid wearing the same outfit every day.

It's not so frequent that an article loses me at the first sentence.

allengeorge• 9 years ago

I buy mine from Warby Parker. I don't get rock-bottom prices, but the frames I got were good quality, their in-store experience is great, and they've good customer service.

Plus, I can try before I buy...which I value a lot (I don't want to guess at how glasses fit/look)

Tempest1981• 9 years ago

Any issues with the optical center position, or pupillary distance, when ordering online?

I had a new pair of glasses (for distance), and was struggling to focus quickly (vs old glasses). The issue was the optical center, which was 3mm too high. Wearing them lower was the short-term fix.

walterbell20• 9 years ago

If you know how to measure the vertical offset (fitting height / segment height) of the optical center from the bottom of the lens edge, or can get someone to measure that for you, EyeBuyDirect (and probably other sites that have remake policies) will exchange a new pair with your custom height. You need the first pair to try on frame and do the measurement. For subsequent orders of the same frame, you can specify fitting height in “Special Instructions” for your prescription.

If self-measuring with a mirror, ensure the temples and nose pads have been fully adjusted before taking the pupil location measurement.

apostacy• 9 years ago

I've had some bad experiences with Eye Buy Direct.

But the thing that really scared me was that after a few months of wearing their glasses, my vision would start to go blurry for a few seconds at a time, and I would feel intense tingling in my eyes.

My eye doctor told me that the glasses were putting excess strain on my eyes, and I was glad I did not have any diseases.

At least for my prescription, I do need a more exact fitting.

walterbell20• 9 years ago

Many eye doctors (not opticians!) will be glad to verify the accuracy of your glasses. For first time online purchases, ask your doctor to verify, tell you exactly what (if anything) is not correct, then request a free re-make with the correct fitting parameters.

If you have access to a skilled, craftsman local optician and can financially afford to support them with local purchases, please do so. Such opticians are rare and valuable, if only to have a reference point when comparing cheaper providers. Consumers will benefit by rejecting low-quality glasses both offline and online. We need quantitative quality tests for new glasses, regardless of origin, instead of waiting weeks or months to check for possible side effects.

If you are rolling the dice at a chain store, learn how to do your own fitting. It takes a few hours and will serve you for a lifetime of glasses.

superkuh• 9 years ago

This is only true if your prescription is run of the mill and fairly weak. Anything above 5 diopter off, or with barrel corrections, astigmatism, etc and you should go to an actual optometrist.

Zenni and the like use terrible materials with bad abbe numbers leading to chromatic abberation. They push 'thin' but what thing really means is high refractive index and generally low abbe number. Even their 'normal' lens material has a bad abbe number.

So, get your frames online cheap. Then take them to your actual optometrist and get lenses made of good materials put in.

walterbell20• 9 years ago

There is wide variation in the supply chain of online eyeglass retailers.

EyeBuyDirect and FramesDirect are partly-owned by the world’s largest lens manufacturer Essilor (soon to merge with Luxottica), so their lenses are very similar if not identical to those sold by local opticians.

I’ve bought -6 sphere -2 cylinder from EyeBuyDirect. Their default fitting height for optical center did not work for my face size (easily verified by moving the frame up and down to find the clearest spot). Once I had the correct measurement, they remade the glasses which worked perfectly.

silencio• 9 years ago

I have astigmatism and the one and only time my glasses have been incorrectly dispensed was with a pair that I got through an optometrist, discovered a year later ("your glasses don't match your prescription!") written off in the early days ("it'll take time to get used to a new prescription"). I've since purchased glasses from zenni, warby parker, jins, costco, and 39 dollar glasses without any problems. Bonus is extra pairs of glasses and upgrades included for the cost of the optometrist's lens price alone - driving sunglasses, work/computer glasses, transitions lenses, an extra pair in case I accidentally step on the current pair...

My dad also has some vision issues requiring prism correction and high diopters. He's also a big fan of the budget and online retailers. Seems to be good enough.

jdietrich3• 9 years ago

I don't know what the US market is like, but in the UK it's easy to find glasses online with Zeiss, Nikon, Essilor or Hoya lenses. For what it's worth, I need six diopters of cylinder and have had no problems with unbranded CR39 lenses.

danso3• 9 years ago

I don’t know if there are options on this but when I bought a couple of $99 pairs from Warby Parker, the frames were fine but the lenses were of substantially lower quality. I’m talking about how only the middle area of the lens is clear, whereas what seems like 70% of the remaining area is suboptimal.

walterbell20• 9 years ago

High minus sphere or non-zero cylinder? Polycarbonate lens?

danso3• 9 years ago

Are those options for Warby Parker? Or do you mean are those options I purchased for my optometrist-bought lenses? I probably spent $200 on lenses alone so no doubt they’re better than what Warby Parker provides. It’s just that WP doesn’t seem to have other options besides standard and progressive. And the standard WB lenses give me a headache after awhile so the price savings is marginal for me.

FWIW I’m also super nearsighted so I might be an edge case

j7ake• 9 years ago

I find buying glasses online less convenient than going to the brick and mortar shop. I need to see an optometrist anyways so while I am there I can try on glasses I like and buy everything on the spot.

I buy glasses once every 3 years to update prescription. The extra cost therefore is approximately 50 bucks a year (assuming I pay 300 at shop versus 50 online).

If I need an extra pair (which I have not needed) then I can consider buying online.

moonka• 9 years ago

Last time I priced out Eyeglasses from Zenni, Warby Parker etc, they came out to be within a percent or so of Costco. It took a bit to figure out all the measurements so I was comparing like for like (thickness of lense, etc), and I do have a strong prescription so YMMV.

giardini• 9 years ago

I've bought reading glasses (the only ones I need) from the 99-cent store for years now. There's some QC variation, so I always test each pair on some reading material before buying.

Certainly custom-fitted glasses _can_ be excellent, but I've had less trouble with the dollar store glasses, all in all, than with my former $300 custom-fitted ones. And I don't worry if they're misplaced, since I always have several spares cached around the apartment.

bambax• 9 years ago

No matter how fashionable – or not – we consider ourselves, we all try to avoid wearing the same outfit every day. We regularly change our shirts, our pants, our suits, our jackets, our shoes, our hats, even our belts.

What an introduction!?! Is this true?

I wear the exact same outfit every day. I own one belt, one coat, and zero hat. I have a small selection of shoes but they all serve a different purpose. It would be extremely difficult for me to wear a different outfit every month, let alone every day.

webkike• 9 years ago

Yes, most people deliberately avoid wearing the same outfit twice in a short period of time. Motivation may very, my reasoning is I don't want people to think I don't do laundry often

mantas• 9 years ago

But it's the opposite. Since I have just a couple sets of outfits, I have to do laundry often. If I'd have shitload of clothes, I might get away with doing laundry once a month.

jonknee2• 9 years ago

You haven't noticed that people you see regularly don't all have a uniform?

keyboardhitter2• 9 years ago

Personally I like buying my glasses in real life from higher end stores because the stores offered me years of free repairs and adjustments on-demand, and even given discounts on recurring appointments and purchases.

I used to only buy glasses from wal-mart or other cheap alternatives and went through 2-3 pairs a year (I am clumsy and my lenses are thick, a tough combination for durability). Customer service aside, I found the larger pricetag has had a huge psychological impact on me not being negligent to the item... funny how that changes if i perceive something as 'disposable'. I'm not proud of that fact, or of the prices I've paid in the last 8 years; but I've only had two pairs of glasses in that time -- a huge improvement from when I was a child/teen. In fact, the last pair I owned are still intact but I simply wanted a new design.

I will probably give online glasses shopping another time when this current pair is exhausted. Which could be a while, and i anticipate huge advancement in visualization capability by then!

dboreham2• 9 years ago

Costco has cheapness and customer service.

keyboardhitter2• 9 years ago

I've never been to Costco. I didn't realize they had eyewear. I'll make sure to remember that when/if I revisit membership consideration(usually the cost of membership isn't worth it for me as a single person with no kids or family to support).

trendia• 9 years ago

Part of the reason eyeglasses are so expensive is "vision insurance", which is not insurance at all. By definition, insurance is the spread of risk of a high-cost, low-probability event over a large population so that no individual has to pay a huge sum if the event occurs. For instance, eye insurance would have a small premium that would pay out if an eye injury occured that required very expensive medical care. However, modern "vision insurance"

1. won't pay if you injure your eye

2. doesn't spread any risk over a population

Instead of reducing risk, vision insurance simply spreads a known cost over a period of time. If each customer would pay $240 / yr on eyeglasses, it allows them to instead pay $20 / mo. That is not insurance -- that's a payment plan!

So, why does it exist and why does it increase price? Very simply, vision insurance can be provided by a company to its employees and deducted as an expense. This allows the employee to avoid paying personal income tax on wages, which would happen if the $240 were provided directly to the worker. Thus, it is cheaper for the company to provide vision insurance than to increase wages to provide $240 in after-tax take home pay.

Because the money tied up with vision insurance can not be used for anything other than glasses (e.g. you can't cash out a vision plan and spend the money on video games or travel), there is no incentive for the end customer to spend less on glasses. They will want to spend as much as possible while still remaining below the maximum budget from the plan. As a result, this distorts the normal financial incentives in a marketplace.

As a result of the favorable tax position and lack of cost incentives, vision insurance inflates the price of eyeglasses and exploits a de facto subsidy from the taxpayer to the eyeglass company. This increases the profits of the eyeglass company (owned by Luxottica) at the expense of the consumer (and to the detriment of anyone who buys their glasses out of their own pocket)

walterbell20• 9 years ago

Good points! Previous thread on vision insurance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15736573

chrisseaton• 9 years ago

This is also why it makes absolutely not sense to expect 'health insurance' to cover pre-existing conditions - it's not insurance if you know you already need it when you buy it!

(I think people should be able to get good quality affordable medical care for health conditions they already have! Just saying it doesn't make any sense to expect literal 'insurance' to cover it.)

dboreham2• 9 years ago

Insurance doesn’t make much sense for healthcare in general.

0xfeba• 9 years ago

I dunno, I'd still call it insurance for pre-existing conditions. Just like, genetic insurance.

jdietrich3• 9 years ago

This is also why it makes absolutely not sense to expect 'health insurance' to cover pre-existing conditions - it's not insurance if you know you already need it when you buy it!

Eh, not really. If I'm in remission from cancer, I'm not actually sick right now, but I've got a pre-existing condition because the cancer might recur. If I've got hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, I don't necessarily need any medical treatment now, but I'm at elevated risk of developing atrial fibrillation or suffering a stroke in the future.

The way health insurers treat "pre-existing conditions" is mostly about improving the profitability of their risk pools rather than protecting themselves from people who buy insurance after the fact. They use a plausible-sounding pretext to avoid having to insure people who might actually claim on their policy. It's one thing to exclude a specific chronic condition from coverage, but it's quite another to refuse to insure people altogether simply because they've had health issues in the past.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09...

bdcravens• 9 years ago

It can be a combination. I have cystic fibrosis, and there are guaranteed expenses (medicines, etc). However events that may happen (hospitalizations, neuropathy from Diabetes, lung transplant, etc) aren’t guaranteed

david38• 9 years ago

You should call it "health care payments" then. Insurance has long gone past it's original goal of mitigating risk.

pingec• 9 years ago

I don't wear glasses but I can recommend this store https://www.aliexpress.com/store/201163

Have ordered a few pairs for family and they are all happy with them. I didn't tell them how cheap they were though.

Freak_NL• 9 years ago

I didn't tell them how cheap they were though.

They know. If they were to charge more another Chinese competitor would step in, and customers would be less likely to give them a try because of the risk that is part of the AliExpress experience. It's just how the AliExpress economy works.

wikibob• 9 years ago

He means didn’t tell the family and friends that they were cheap, not the shop. :)

Havoc• 9 years ago

Weird. That's one of the products I'd rather buy from a proper optician.

Hell I bought my non-prescription shades from an optician. Not interested in name brands but I do like a solid product

ErrantX• 9 years ago

I dont buy the theory that Optometery is such an expensive profession. Opticians here in the UK do well (definitely in the richer cohort of society) and you can get two pairs of glasses for under £100. In fact some of the bigger chains offer free tests and two pairs for £69.

None of this is NHS subsidised as far as I know (you can get free glasses on the NHS but it only applies to children and adults with certain medical conditions or low income).

kolbe2• 9 years ago

Aside from the glaringly false assertion that they are the one thing you should buy online, I'm not even sold on the idea that they're an item that you should buy online.

Call me a snob or whatever, but I like two things: high quality and local. Some optometrists in Chicago are among the few remaining locally owned and operated businesses. And there are several here who put an emphasis on selling hand-crafted Japanese frames. As a local business, they're also up for negotiations, so I was able to get some truly great non-Luxottica frames from cool people in my own community for about a 20% premium over a cheaper online alternative.

walterbell20• 9 years ago

Sounds like a great local business, care to share the name? In my city, the cheapest lenses from a reputable optician (in Chinatown) are priced 300% more than online, but are ready in a few days vs few weeks for online.

Some independent boutiques are priced for a high-end market segment who don’t have insurance that mandates Luxottica frames or specific lenses. Such independents don’t compete with Costco, Walmart, Lenscrafters or online pricing.

kolbe2• 9 years ago

These were both good options near me. To your point, I know that you cannot walk out of any of these boutiques for anything less than $150 a frame, but they also try to only sell the hand made german/japanese frames, which cost a lot everywhere, as you might imagine.

http://www.labrabbit.com/

http://dvoptical.com/

nunez• 9 years ago

100%. Eyewear is one of the biggest rackets on Earth next to furniture, clothing and (most) luxury autos. Build a frame for $2, slap a Gucci logo on it, sell it through eye centers that you own for $700, then sell an “insurance plan” that you own to “reduce” that price to $450 or so.

Meanwhile, that same pair can be had on Amazon for $160 or for $60 (with lenses!) for a similarly-constructed set of frames on Zenni or Coastal.

I’ve been advocating HARD for people to ditch their optos and buy glasses through Zenni. People get blown away when I tell them how cheap their glasses are!

Source: family works for a major optical manufacurer

d0100• 9 years ago

I bought some at eyebuydirect, not high in quality, but pretty cheap. Especially for sunglasses for the beach, etc.

brandonmenc• 9 years ago

It's great that there are now cheap, online options for glasses.

However, I'm getting sick of friends who got their glasses from Warby Parker telling me that I'm a fool for buying frames from Luxottica-owned Oliver Peoples.

Some of us are willing to pay the extra money for "just a piece of plastic with a name slapped on" because we can tell the difference - it is possible for designer frames to be subtly more attractive or constructed a bit better.

But again, that said, if you don't care or can't afford it, the cheaper options are great, and I wish they had been available when I was younger.

Nokinside• 9 years ago

Frames from well known licensed 'high fashion brands' or completely made up design brands from Luxottica are not real designer brands and they are not especially high quality. They are just results of marketing and consumer segmentation.

Real designer frames come, like Ørgreen are not significantly more expensive compared to what you can buy from Oliver Peoples. They are actually better, lighter, more comfy and durable than what you are wearing now.

walterbell20• 9 years ago

Oliver Peoples, like Oakley and Ray-Ban, was a Luxottica acquisition that was once independently successful, so it’s more than a clothing fashion label attached to a generic frame. However, like many big company acquisitions, the best and brightest talent leave to start a new company and the parent company has its own approach to supply chain management.

Barton Perreira and Salt Optics are independent lines from California, with some roots in Oliver Peoples.

Prodesign is an independent line from Denmark. A few of their models have features like screwless hinges and flexible frames that cost two to three times more from designers like Mykita. Modo from NYC is also a solid mid-range independent line, frames made in Japan.

The One Product You Should Buy Online: Eyeglasses

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