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Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

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Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#301

Post by LorenPechtel »

walnutclosefarm wrote: post #208
jusssi wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does buying glasses online even work? I have never tried, so I'd expect it to be like buying shoes without trying them on (which I won't do either, based on in-store experience I'd be returning 9 pairs out of 10 for bad fit). I wear glasses for 95% of time, I want to not hate how they feel.

Yes. Like a charm. Biggest potential hitch is that your optometrist will give you your prescription (they are required by law), but won't include your ocular measurements, which you then have to make yourself at home in order to order the glasses. Get the inter-ocular distance wrong, in particular, and your glasses will not work correctly.

US scripts usually don't include the ocular measurements. I've had a pair where they got the vertical ever so slightly wrong on a progressive, truly horrible, I went back to the eye doc about it and it confounded him also--I could look through the script on his machine and it was fine. He finally figured out what had happened, dialed something into his machine and it was just as awful as the glasses. The optician recut the offending lens, no problem at all. I have no idea how you are even supposed to measure that at home, the opticians always seem to do it on the frame you're actually going to be using. It's not fixed like PD is. (If you're not doing progressive it doesn't have to be spot on, though.)

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#302

Post by LorenPechtel »

pkphilip wrote: post #192
chasil wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glasses aren't that expensive. I buy them from https://zennioptical.com I don't think that I'd ever pay more than $100 for a frame again. The sunglasses that we buy in a drugstore can be had for paltry sums, why not prescription eyewear?

You can buy frames with glasses in India for less than Rs.800 (less than $10)

I would doubt the quality.

A few years back my wife bought a pair (single vision) in China for about $30--excellent at the time but they turned out not to be durable. (She had taken a tumble and smashed her pair.)

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#303

Post by LorenPechtel »

epmaybe wrote: post #70
wrycoder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ophthalmologist claimed he didn’t have the equipment to add PD to his prescription. Bald-faced liar. BTW, the app is called PD Measure.

Ophthalmologist or optometrist? Very different, and I think the difference needs to be overstated more and more.

Not the poster but I see no reason to doubt the claim. A while back when dealing with glasses that didn't come out right my eye doc wanted to check the PD in an attempt to figure out why my glasses were bothering me (I'm incredibly sensitive on my computer pair, I can't tolerate anything that isn't absolutely spot on)--and she walked over to the optical center to borrow their PD measurer. She didn't have one because it's not something she normally needs.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#304

Post by LorenPechtel »

wrycoder wrote: post #267
cto_of_antifa wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty messed up they wouldn't let you endanger them at their own workplace

It’s clear at this point that vax/boosts don’t keep you from contracting or passing on the virus. What matters to others is you showing up at the dentist exhibiting symptoms.

They reduce the chance, however. Imperfect protection is better than nothing.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#305

Post by LorenPechtel »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #210
wrycoder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ophthalmologist claimed he didn’t have the equipment to add PD to his prescription. Bald-faced liar. BTW, the app is called PD Measure.

> My ophthalmologist claimed he didn’t have the equipment to add PD to his prescription. It's called a PD Ruler and it's literally just a mm ruler. Bald-faced liar indeed.

They usually have a machine that reads it a bit more accurately.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#306

Post by LorenPechtel »

kmonsen wrote: post #89
Someone1234 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your employer may offer pre-tax vision insurance, this vision insurance is run by Luxottica, and works exclusively at their retail locations and brands. Sometimes employers will even pay part of the vision insurance premium, thus making it, so your choices are to leave that money on the table OR pay completely out of pocket post-tax dollars. There are alternative ways to use pretax dollars on eyeware, but many people…

Doesn’t all fsa account cover glasses? Pretty easy to use that for pre tax dollars on eyeware. You can spend it wherever you want.

Not all of us have FSAs. We're both self-employed, no FSA money.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#307

Post by LorenPechtel »

andirk wrote: post #150
petilon wrote: post #19

Glasses are expensive because there is no competition. One company - Luxottica - owns pretty much everything. You go to LensCrafters and prices seem super expensive, so you go to Pearle Vision and that's expensive too, so you go to Target Optical and prices are still high and then you think maybe glasses are expensive, since you went to multiple stores and they all have similar prices. What you don't realize is that…

Is there some way to make this comment a billboard? The lenses are manufactured per individual according to their need. Granted it's within a spectrum of choices such as it's -1.5 or -2, not -1.66421 (right?). Then one can add features to the lenses like anti-glare, anti-scratch, spectrum, blue light filter. Insurance covers 100%, and it's not a lot. But the frames?? They're very, very small amounts of metal and mass…

The steps are .25 on the diopters. I suspect I would have slightly better vision for a while if they went to .125 as there have been plenty of times I felt that her 1 and 2 were bracketing ideal. I don't know the resolution of the axis and cylinder numbers.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#308

Post by LorenPechtel »

dotancohen wrote: post #291
andirk wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry the word is "prism", not spectrum.

Thanks. Now I just need to learn what prism means in this context ))

I believe it's tilting the lens relative to the frame.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#309

Post by LorenPechtel »

ggm wrote: post #188

Having moved to specific focal point, variable focus on high refractive index plastic (because I have some untenably bad differential between eyes and glass was causing my specs to slide off diagonally) I now find that I don't seem to get "told" the magic formulae for making my specs, to my needs. The basics are fine. I could use a $20 test and get fixed focus lenses cheap. Getting them to re-produce what I wear appe…

I think the eye chart still has use. The machine spits out a field of numbers but my eye doc uses that as a starting point to refine from. Since I have some astigmatism there is no perfect answer, it's a matter of finding what deviation from perfect is the best and I get the strong impression that that's a matter of the individual, not something the machine can measure.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#310

Post by shushpanchik »

Kevguy wrote: post #271
chasil wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glasses aren't that expensive. I buy them from https://zennioptical.com I don't think that I'd ever pay more than $100 for a frame again. The sunglasses that we buy in a drugstore can be had for paltry sums, why not prescription eyewear?

Zenni is a good choice _if you know your PD_ (pupillary distance) - the distance from nose to center of pupil. 1 mm off will turn your glasses into headache machines. And the phone apps that purport to measure this are universally bad. Get it professionally done at a place that will give you the value. Costco will do so. If you don't want to purchase online Costco is decent price - $180ish for the progressives lenses…

PD is a distance between pupils' centers, not pupil and the nose.
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