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One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people

onedollarglasses.org

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Re: One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people

#21

Post by Declanomous »

Arcsech wrote: post #11

Glasses are a total racket. Purchasing your glasses online is many, many times cheaper than going to Lenscrafters or basically any other brick & mortar store in the US. I've been buying online for years and they're every bit as good as usual ones. You do need your pupillary distance, but you either measure this yourself with the help of a friend, or ask your optometrist. If they refuse or tell you how evil buying gla…

I order my glasses from Zenni, but I don't think it's for everyone. For one thing, they always locate the pupil at the exact midpoint of the lens. Unless you wear very small frames, your pupils are probably located somewhat higher in the lens when you are wearing the glasses in the most comfortable or attractive manner. This can result in double vision, chromatic anomalies, headaches, and worse. It's far more likely to be an issue if you have a strong prescription than a weak one, but inexpensive glasses may be a false economy if you have any of these problems.

edit: Also, one pair of glasses I ordered from Zenni gave me a rash around my eyes and on my eyelids. I've gotten contact rashes from watches before, so it wasn't entirely unexpected, but I'd never had it happen with glasses before. I thought I had just gotten a sunburn at first, and it took me a while to convince myself it was my glasses. (I basically didn't wear the glasses for a month, and then wore them again.) It's either the plastic used for the frame, or maybe a mold release. Regardless, I've tried washing the glasses with a strong detergent, and I've had them ultrasonically cleaned and they still give me a rash. They cost $30 though, which basically makes them disposable compared to normal glasses.

Re: One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people

#22

Post by criddell »

mundo wrote: post #18
cookiecaper wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online glasses still come out to about $80 for me based on the requirements of my prescription, but yes, the markup that optical places charge is through the roof. Outlets like Zenni Optical are seriously giving local optometrists a run for their money, to the point where the industry is panicked over it.

"The industry" is mainly Luxottica[1], a company that controls the majority of the world glasses market - prescription and non, production and retail, and even (through a vision insurer) purchasing. There's a ton of "look at this horrible monopoly and how many damage they do!" type articles about. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica

I love to know if Luxottica has tried to buy Warby Parker.

Re: One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people

#23

Post by GunboatDiplomat »

Arcsech wrote: post #11

Glasses are a total racket. Purchasing your glasses online is many, many times cheaper than going to Lenscrafters or basically any other brick & mortar store in the US. I've been buying online for years and they're every bit as good as usual ones. You do need your pupillary distance, but you either measure this yourself with the help of a friend, or ask your optometrist. If they refuse or tell you how evil buying gla…

>If they refuse or tell you how evil buying glasses online is, get a new optometrist.

It's truly hilarious how defensive they get over online glasses purchases. I've been using Zenni for over 5 years now, and there's no way in hell I'd go back to using a local optometrist for my glasses.

Re: One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people

#24

Post by sbarre »

criddell wrote: post #19
Johnny555 wrote: post #8

My glasses cost $39 from one of the many online cheap glasses makers. So now I have more money to donate to the $1 glasses campaign :) Last time I got glasses, I tried a test, I bought the $300 glasses from my eye doctor ("only" $200 after insurance), and I bought a pair of $39 glasses online. I found no difference between the two other than price (and the ones I bought online arrived by mail the day before the expen…

Last time I got a new prescription I asked them to include the PD number and they refused. They would only give that to me if I bought glasses through them. I couldn't even pay them for just the measurement (I suggested $10-$20). It's easy enough to measure myself, so that's what I did. My glasses were $45 and he said his costs were more than twice that. Where's all that money going?

To fuel the lie

Re: One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people

#25

Post by BurningFrog »

Arcsech wrote: post #11

Glasses are a total racket. Purchasing your glasses online is many, many times cheaper than going to Lenscrafters or basically any other brick & mortar store in the US. I've been buying online for years and they're every bit as good as usual ones. You do need your pupillary distance, but you either measure this yourself with the help of a friend, or ask your optometrist. If they refuse or tell you how evil buying gla…

Last I checked Costco was a lot cheaper than other B&M stores.

Re: One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people

#26

Post by PascLeRasc »

Arcsech wrote: post #11

Glasses are a total racket. Purchasing your glasses online is many, many times cheaper than going to Lenscrafters or basically any other brick & mortar store in the US. I've been buying online for years and they're every bit as good as usual ones. You do need your pupillary distance, but you either measure this yourself with the help of a friend, or ask your optometrist. If they refuse or tell you how evil buying gla…

Warby Parker (https://www.warbyparker.com/) makes some really nice "luxury" glasses, even though they still cost less than the cheapest pair you'll see in a typical store. They'll even send you 5 frames to try on at your home.

Re: One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people

#27

Post by dannysu »

Arcsech wrote: post #11

Glasses are a total racket. Purchasing your glasses online is many, many times cheaper than going to Lenscrafters or basically any other brick & mortar store in the US. I've been buying online for years and they're every bit as good as usual ones. You do need your pupillary distance, but you either measure this yourself with the help of a friend, or ask your optometrist. If they refuse or tell you how evil buying gla…

I've bought stuff from all 3 before. Zenni is the one that I finally figured out how to order for my PD correctly, but there are some caveats.

1) See this twitter https://twitter.com/troyd/status/560089054356574209 - My zenni specific email was spammed. They either sold my email or they were hacked. I don't know what the cause, but I would not give them anything valuable including only using PayPal with them.

2) Their anti-reflective coating is not as good what I get from local optometry. My pictures tend to have this greenish tint, and I paid for the best thing you can get from them.

That said, I was able to get $8 glasses that worked and I can see perfectly using them. If I need cheap glasses, I know where to go.

Re: One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people

#28

Post by j79 »

Arcsech wrote: post #11

Glasses are a total racket. Purchasing your glasses online is many, many times cheaper than going to Lenscrafters or basically any other brick & mortar store in the US. I've been buying online for years and they're every bit as good as usual ones. You do need your pupillary distance, but you either measure this yourself with the help of a friend, or ask your optometrist. If they refuse or tell you how evil buying gla…

I would love to buy glasses on-line, but have a simple issue of having an absolute massive head. Unless I go in and physically try on a pair, I just have to assume it won't fit (usually the width of face, but temple length is also a pain...)

:(

Re: One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people

#30

Post by mootothemax »

criddell wrote: post #19
Johnny555 wrote: post #8

My glasses cost $39 from one of the many online cheap glasses makers. So now I have more money to donate to the $1 glasses campaign :) Last time I got glasses, I tried a test, I bought the $300 glasses from my eye doctor ("only" $200 after insurance), and I bought a pair of $39 glasses online. I found no difference between the two other than price (and the ones I bought online arrived by mail the day before the expen…

Last time I got a new prescription I asked them to include the PD number and they refused. They would only give that to me if I bought glasses through them. I couldn't even pay them for just the measurement (I suggested $10-$20). It's easy enough to measure myself, so that's what I did. My glasses were $45 and he said his costs were more than twice that. Where's all that money going?

>It's easy enough to measure myself

Do you have any recommendations about this? It's the kind of thing I'm a bit nervous about searching as I can see many, many ways I might accidentally read the optician equivalent of an anti-vaccination blog.

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