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Launch HN: Quadrant Eye (YC W21) – Tackling online eye exams and at-home eyecare

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Re: Launch HN: Quadrant Eye (YC W21) – Tackling online eye exams and at-home eyecare

#51
post #48
post #2

Just got a postcard from my optometrist the other day saying it’s time for my annual prescription check. My eyes are no different, but my glasses are scratched, so I need to spend an hour or two to get this fixed instead of just reordering glasses online. Can’t wait to use a service like this instead, much faster and easier, good luck!!

There are two parts to this. One, yeah the optometrist wants your money, sure. You probably don’t need your script checked annually unless you’re old or there’s something serious already known to be wrong with your eyes. But... Not perceiving a change in your vision doesn’t mean your eyes are healthy - there are all sorts of diseases that a decent optometrist is screening for during an eye exam. Most notably glaucoma…

There’s a lot of good stuff to unpack here, and thank you for bringing all of it up!

I’ll highlight the main point, which is that these “check your vision at home” tests never screen for disease. This is 100% true and is one of the biggest issues I have with the “exams” that are currently out there.

There’s a critical element of good vision that exists outside of needing glasses or needing contacts, and that is, are your eyes healthy and functioning well? Are there underlying, silent issues that don’t bother you day to day but may turn into serious problems down the line? All of these are serious considerations that my team and I are thinking through very carefully, and I want to make it quite clear that our end product will at the very least be able to screen for all the major categories of disease (eg diabetic eye disease, AMD, glaucoma, optic neuropathy, etc.)

Re: Launch HN: Quadrant Eye (YC W21) – Tackling online eye exams and at-home eyecare

#52
This is really neat!

A few questions after trying the prototype:

(1) Is there enough variation in people's arm lengths that it would be beneficial to give another way to describe the distance to the monitor?

(2) Is there any impact from the monitor's dot pitch or contrast settings on which lines people will be able to read, even at a constant size and distance? Are some monitors effectively just better quality in a way that could lead to a different result?

(3) Is there any impact from the monitor's physical aspect ratio because some people are looking more straight ahead and some are looking more to one side (when using a wide-screen monitor in landscape mode)?

(4) How well can people who have double vision or retina problems correctly match the test images they see to one of the intentionally-distorted samples? Could their vision problems also distort the samples so that they end up picking the wrong one?

(5) Could having the intentionally-distorted samples visible at the same time as the test image bias people's perceptions, since they can guess which one is most normal (least distorted) and then optimistically claim to have seen that one?

(6) Will you be able to realistically simulate the effects of a proposed prescription change, even without having physical lenses for the user to look through? (I didn't upload my prescription to the prototype, so I don't know exactly what happens after that step.)

Re: Launch HN: Quadrant Eye (YC W21) – Tackling online eye exams and at-home eyecare

#53
cool, so this is like warby parker's app for renewing prescriptions?

that really saved my ass recently, when my glasses broke and I found my prescription was expired. Apparently, they let you use an expired prescription up to 18 months, and mine had expired like 20 months ago.

Their app worked, but was pretty painful. Required holding my phone 14 feet from my monitor- had to move my desktop to a different room to get the app to approve.

Re: Launch HN: Quadrant Eye (YC W21) – Tackling online eye exams and at-home eyecare

#54
Welcome to the digital eye test club! I'm CTO at easee.online and we've been in this space for a couple of years. Let me know if you want to have a virtual coffee! I'd be happy to have a chat and see how we can improve eyecare together.

Re: Launch HN: Quadrant Eye (YC W21) – Tackling online eye exams and at-home eyecare

#55
post #29

Interesting, I went through it, but then it got to this slide: > look at the image of the circle at the top of the page. And there is no circle whatsoever on that page, so I didn't know if it was a typo, a browser problem... or my eyes went blind!

Hmm, we have actually never gotten that! Can dig into it. What browser/device are you on? We don't support mobile (added this to post!) because the vision charts need to be displayed at a certain size. There's usually a warning that pops up for mobile, but it's earlier in the flow than what we posted to HKN.

I'm using Mac OS 10.15.7

I don't see any circles.

As a general comment, this whole test procedure seems very crude. If I saw overlapping circles with my glasses on, like in some of your tests, I would say that my prescription was way off. A better prescription is necessary long before you get to that point.

Re: Launch HN: Quadrant Eye (YC W21) – Tackling online eye exams and at-home eyecare

#57

Congrats on launching! As someone whose parents have been increasingly having eye issues in the past few years, this is a godsend. So excited to see how the product continues to develop!

Thanks, that’s what we love to hear. Please do let us know if you have any feature requests/ideas :)

Re: Launch HN: Quadrant Eye (YC W21) – Tackling online eye exams and at-home eyecare

#58

Welcome to the digital eye test club! I'm CTO at easee.online and we've been in this space for a couple of years. Let me know if you want to have a virtual coffee! I'd be happy to have a chat and see how we can improve eyecare together.

Oh hello! I’ve come across easee before and think what you guys are doing is awesome. You’re based in Sweden, right?

Re: coffee, I believe the two of us have interacted on LinkedIn. So nice to be working in the same space — let’s definitely sync!

Re: Launch HN: Quadrant Eye (YC W21) – Tackling online eye exams and at-home eyecare

#59

I'm a former programmer, now in mid forties, and recently diagnosed with low-tension glaucoma, so I appreciate the value in your service. I have no family history so I wonder if my long years of staring at screens had something to do with it, though I realize the causes are complex and not well understood. In my case it was caught reasonably early but I feel it could have been caught earlier. Its a bit surprising to…

I'm a programmer and was diagnosed glaucoma 3 years ago and I'm 30 now. My doctor prescribed me 2 medicines, tafluprost and carteolol, which cost 130 CNY per month. I see the doctor and do an air puff test once a month. This costs 80 CNY. Doing an OCT once a year requires 500 CNY, and a total of 3000 CNY (approximately 470 USD) per year. Recently, my doctor suggested that I have an operation. It may prevent me from using eye drops in the future. I am considering it.

Re: Launch HN: Quadrant Eye (YC W21) – Tackling online eye exams and at-home eyecare

#60
post #29

Interesting, I went through it, but then it got to this slide: > look at the image of the circle at the top of the page. And there is no circle whatsoever on that page, so I didn't know if it was a typo, a browser problem... or my eyes went blind!

Hmm, we have actually never gotten that! Can dig into it. What browser/device are you on? We don't support mobile (added this to post!) because the vision charts need to be displayed at a certain size. There's usually a warning that pops up for mobile, but it's earlier in the flow than what we posted to HKN.

I also had no circle, just a red square.
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