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Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry

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Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry

#71

Post by Epskampie »

uf wrote: post #55
blackbrokkoli wrote: post #40

Title correction: Why are glasses so expensive in the US? The American eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry. Please stop using the US as the "that's how it is"-standard. In Germany, you pay a very reasonable (from my layman perspective) price for the lenses, maybe about 40$ plus another 30$ if you want to have non-reflective glasses or product from big name producers and stuff like that. Like every fashion pr…

70$ for glasses in Germany? I have to pay about 200€ per glas. Maybe weaker glasses are cheap. After all you can buy glasses in the supermarket for a few bucks. Those modern glasses get scratches after just a few years of careful handling and cleaning only with „Mikrofaser“ in my experience. No fun having weak eyes in Germany.

You might consider an ultrasonic glasses cleaner. They are pretty cheap (around €50), and clean without touch.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry

#72

Post by SomeHacker44 »

I have been buying glasses from Goggles4U for a decade or so here in the USA. I enter my prescription plus my PD. I get very good glasses for $20-40 all in. Recently I moved to progressives which actually cost a bit more ($20-40).

For comparison, last year my wife added me to her VSP. For $200 + $500 paid by VSP from a pocal optometrist/eyewear store I got glasses that might be a tad more stylish, but the progressive prescription is worse - fewer areas are in focus. What a joke.

Always buy online. At these prices you can trade a movie night out for a set of spare glasses. I have single focus distance, reading, sunglasses and progressives for about the price of the copay on a VSP.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry

#73

Post by joecool1029 »

xxpor wrote: post #64
dawhizkid wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

biggest scam is that glasses/contact prescriptions only last a year in the US

That varies by state. My NJ prescription lasts for 6 years IIRC.

Depends on your doctor.

In NJ mine always dates a year, so I got fed up and found a supplier to buy from that doesn't give a shit what my prescription says.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry

#74

Post by wenc »

cableshaft wrote: post #28
jawns wrote: post #15

Reminder, if you're in the US, the FTC says your eye doctor must give you your prescription after your exam. If a doctor refuses to do so, they can face legal action and penalties. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2016/05/buying-prescriptio... That said, I don't think the FTC stipulates what information must appear on the prescription. Many docs leave off your PD (pupillary distance), which is a necessary measuremen…

As you mention, measuring PD yourself (with a friend) isn't hard. There's articles and videos online about it. I've seen that left off a couple times, and I just ask one of the people up front to just measure it for me and tell me what it is. I usually buy my main glasses from them anyway, and just say I'll get sunglasses or computer glasses online (which is when I use Zenni), so that helps, but even without mentioni…

It is somewhat hard to get right. I did it with a marker and old glasses, and I still got it wrong (and couldn't return the glasses that I ordered).

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry

#75

Post by sftwds »

jawns wrote: post #15

Reminder, if you're in the US, the FTC says your eye doctor must give you your prescription after your exam. If a doctor refuses to do so, they can face legal action and penalties. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2016/05/buying-prescriptio... That said, I don't think the FTC stipulates what information must appear on the prescription. Many docs leave off your PD (pupillary distance), which is a necessary measuremen…

It doesn't hurt to ask! The last time I got my eyes examined was at some cheap lenscrafters-type store which had a promotion for 2 pairs of glasses and an eye exam for ~$60. The PD wasn't on the prescription, but the doctor made the measurement after I asked about it.

There was a very limited selection of glasses that were available for the 2-for-$60 promotion, and they really tried to upsell me to more expensive frames and lenses. Luckily I was able to resist their sales attempts and bought a nice frame and lenses from Zenni Optical. I keep one pair of the cheap glasses at my office and the other in my car.

As an aside, being able to get inexpensive glasses online has been a huge improvement on my life. I remember growing up when I only had a single pair of glasses (and a "backup" which were with my previous prescription). I had to be very protective of my glasses, and getting a scratch on the lens meant that I was stuck with it until my prescription changed. Now I can get my favorite glasses from Zenni for $25, so I have backups if the lenses get scratched or the frame get bent. I also have prescription sunglasses for the first time! No more dorky clip-on shades!

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry

#76

Post by CompelTechnic »

dawhizkid wrote: post #46
jawns wrote: post #15

Reminder, if you're in the US, the FTC says your eye doctor must give you your prescription after your exam. If a doctor refuses to do so, they can face legal action and penalties. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2016/05/buying-prescriptio... That said, I don't think the FTC stipulates what information must appear on the prescription. Many docs leave off your PD (pupillary distance), which is a necessary measuremen…

biggest scam is that glasses/contact prescriptions only last a year in the US

Which brings up another benefit of using an online eyewear vendor: they let you type your own prescription in. If you are personally fine with using a two-year-old prescription, do it.

When I ordered glasses a year ago, I also played around with the idea of eliminating astigmatism from my prescription by adjusting the cylinder value to 0 (it was only .25 in one eye and .50 in the other) and offsetting the sphere value by half of the difference. Because their buy-one get-one free sale, I got one pair with astigmatism and one without, and got to decide which I liked better.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry

#78

Post by zrobotics »

themodelplumber wrote: post #23
flavor8 wrote: post #5

Zenni is very good. There is a slight difference in quality between them and the Armani Exchange glasses I got from an optician, but it's not significant. I got a basic pair of black framed rectangular nerd specs for $8 last week, and I'd happily wear them out. Measure the frame of a pair of glasses that looks good on your face and then try to find glasses with those measurements on Zenni.

I have had good luck with Zenni, but I know others who have not. For example, a friend of mine unknowingly picked a coating that seemed to make his lenses appear slightly yellow. It was borderline visible so he kept the glasses but later regretted it. Another friend used his cotton T-shirts to wipe his lenses free of dust, and quickly filled them with scratches. I personally EDC lens cleaning cloths now because I nea…

To be fair, I've had 'scratch proof' lenses from an optician that I have ruined in 2 months doing exactly that. And the addon coatings upsell is something many retail opticians do as well, unfortunately.

Although that doesn't excuse the practice, it still feels shady to me.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry

#79

Post by NickBusey »

tianmingwu wrote: post #51

A few years ago I found a technique on youtube to help myopia by wearing slightly lower prescription glasses. And the author recommended zennithoptical.com for cheap glasses. I was almost shocked to find their price to be that cheap. And when I bought a couple of pairs, it turns out their quality is quite decent. I have since bought more than a dozen glasses from zennithoptical.com, at a total cost of about $300. And…

For anyone curious, the actual link is zennioptical.com

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry

#80

Post by throwaway2048 »

zrobotics wrote: post #66
munk-a wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hearing aides are also insanely cheap to produce, they are not complicated devices and that market is only surviving due to the medical device status of them causing a high barrier to entry.

There are actually some decent alternatives avaliable on alibaba and other Chinese outlets. I helped my father with getting a pair, they were 125 and have been performing well for 1.5 years now. Sure, I wouldn't trust alibaba for most medical devices, but something like hearing aids should be safe enough. His insurance wouldn't kick in anything, and while he could afford the price he would never spend it. Since he so…

beware of cheap hearing aids, hearing loss is almost never uniform, so if they aren't adjusted properly they can be far too loud in the parts of the audio spectrum where hearing is less damaged, and can in fact cause further hearing loss.

Not that this is any excuse for them costing $20,000, but its something to keep in mind, cheap abibaba ones likely just make all frequencies louder.

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