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Comment by Arcsech | Hacker News Reader

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 glasses online is, get a new optometrist.

The best sites I'm aware of are:

http://www.zennioptical.com/ (what I use)

https://www.goggles4u.com/

https://www.39dollarglasses.com/

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I get mine in Japan, e.g. from Jins.

That's brick-and-mortar: personal service, ready in 30 minutes. Around 8000 yen, frames and lenses. (Not the thinnest lens, no special coating, but very good.)

> You do need your pupillary distance, but you either measure this yourself with the help of a friend

I have a fool-proof way to do this yourself.

Use a mirror and a ruler. Place the ruler on the mirror and stare with your left eye into that same eye's mirror image, such that the ruler's 0 tick is centered on the pupil. Then, open your right eye and close the left. Stare into your right eye across the ruler and note the millimeters. Flip back to the left eye to make sure you haven't moved from zero.

This is dead accurate. Staring into your own eye in the mirror means you have a perpendicular line from either eye to the ruler.

> I have a fool-proof way to do this yourself. Use a mirror and a ruler. Place the ruler on the mirror and stare with your left eye into that same eye's mirror image, such that the ruler's 0 tick is centered on the pupil. Then, open your right eye and close the left. Stare into your right eye across the ruler and note the millimeters. Flip back to the left eye to make sure you haven't moved from zero.

Damn, that's really clever. How did you come up with that?

It's easy to come up with in the course of experimenting to measure your own inter-pupillary distance.

It goes without saying you will need to look at yourself in a mirror, with a ruler somehow. From the parallax problem is obvious, as is the fact that it's only a problem for mismatched eyes.

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.

> This can result in double vision, chromatic anomalies, headaches, and worse.

I can attest to this. My astigmatism is pretty severe, and the lenses are useless if any measurements are even slightly incorrect.

Usually when I get new lenses I end up sending them back at least once for one defect or another. Sometimes this is the frame tech's fault, but I've also seen quality issues from the lens factory.

Anecdotal, but I have severe astigmatism and Zenni has worked well for me.

Last time I ordered from (them or their competitor) they asked for PD (pupillary distance) is that enough or are the prescription ones still better?

Pupillary distance is basically the horizontal location of the pupils. The issue is that pupils can also have a vertical offset from the center of the lens as well. Accounting for PD alone is sufficient for some people. I'm not a doctor, so I'm not qualified to recommend one option over another. It is something you may want to ask your own doctor about though.

Are there any magic words to account for this that I/we can use when getting a new prescription?

To be fair to Zenni, most online eyeglass sites don't request vertical measurements as the PD is sufficient for the majority of single vision users and there isn't a single vertical measurement that can be applied from one user to other glasses. Ocular center height is very subjective & measured during the fitment of that frame to the user. Optical center being the same height as geometric center is a safe choice for something only made to measure.

There are sites that take segment height for bifocals, but the intended frames need to be in hand for the user to measure.

Sort of off topic, but the contact rash sounds familiar to me. It may be 'nickel allergy', it runs in my family. Any watches, bracelets, glasses, belts with nickel in them touching skin for a while seems to cause it.

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.

Luxottica is the main reason glasses are a total racket. They own every major brand, store, and even insurance companies that provide Vision coverage. There are very few companies that have such a monopoly. They will refuse to sell your brand and have done this to Ray ban, Oakley and then buying both brands when they were in bankruptcy or on the verge. Not even Walmart or Costco can undermine them.

Great 60 minutes show on the company.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voUiWOGv8ec

If you're ever in Europe that is when to buy frames. They are substantially cheaper than in the US/Canada. I bought a pair of Armani Frames for 1/5 the price I could in the US.

My close friend tried Zenni. They sent her glasses which gave her fishbowl vision every time she rotated her head (edges warped quickly as the head turned). She contacted Zenni support and was told "We found a defect in your lenses and we'll send you corrected ones".

The same thing happened with the second pair. So she contacted them and got the same "We found a defect" and they sent her a third pair.

Same thing happened with the third pair. When they told her the same thing ("We found a defect") and offered to send her a fourth pair, she declined and got her refund.

I have nothing against online vs optometrist, but I do know of folks who have not had good luck online.

Just to chime in this is my experience right now and it degrades my quality of life. It looks fine if you are focusing in the center but anything to offset you can't see, it's blurry and it causes considerable eyestrain. I was happy to pay $70 instead of $400 for a pair of glasses, but I need to find a real optometrist and just pay up. I have terrible vision, -7 contact lens RX (ish). And astigmatism. These glasses are probably fine for people who need less correction.

Thanks for your input. Not sure why my comment got downvoted, but it's nice to hear my friend isn't the only one with these issues.

Yeah and -7 this is probably something worth spending a bit more money on. I am at -8.5 and starting at -8 the government actually pays back more money and covered the complete cost of my glasses and my lenses up to a certain point as well. (a total cost of about 400 euro).

I really dislike wearing glasses and much prefer my lenses, yet when I come home I often just wear them anyway. Personally, it is something I did never mind spending some more money on as it is something I need to function properly (lenses or glasses)

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.

warby parker frames look trendy but they're pretty low quality cheap plastic frames, and they're dramatically overpriced compared to comparable glasses from zenni or similar

So you're saying that the glasses from all these places are cheap/poor quality? That is disappointing.

i can't say that they are all categorically low quality, but you're obviously not getting premium frames for very low prices. imo it's worth dishing for a pair of spares at the least, though -- but probably not at warby parker prices

If you're total price shopping, yes.

If you want a specific frame for some reason, it's a good value. I bought a pair of Oakleys from glasses.com ( a luxottica online outlet) for a savings of about $50 from retail. I think the high index lenses were cheaper too. But if you buy $8 glasses, they are going to be junk.

I've been wearing the same $6 frames from Zenni for the last five years.

AFAIK almost all the glasses frames are worth few dollars. What you pay for branded ones is marketing and bit of design, not generally the material quality.

I have tried both Zenni and Warby. Warby's frames are much higher quality than Zenni. I'm on my 3rd pair of regulars, and 2nd pair of sunglasses (which are metal, by the way, and very strong), over the course of 4 years. I still have all pairs I ordered, and they are all still fine.

They are not "cheap plastic frames" by any stretch. I'd put them up against the Luxxotica frames any day. They use the high-end plastics, with metal-reinforced stems. The Zenni's I tried, on the other hand, have no reinforcement, and the plastic is definitely more brittle.

Anecdata, but my SO and I both have had frames from them for about a year with no issues, and my mom's had hers for about 6 months and had to bend them quite a bit to fit her and they've been just fine.

Thanks for this. I've looked at all the others and was generally disappointed in the selection. So far I'm impressed by what I'm seeing at warbyparker.

I don't like a single style they offer. 95% of them seem to be those plastic hipster frames which look terrible on my face.

I've had satisfactory results from all three of these. One of our salespeople was rather upset that my titanium memory-wire glasses looked about the same as his but cost an order of magnitude less.

Try eyebuydirect.ca, I've tried zenni, loved them until I found eyebuydirect. (Wow that really sounded like a commercial LOL) in all seriousness, great style, cheap prices, lots of sales.

I've had great experiences ordering glasses from goggles4u.

I'm not sure if they still do it, but the outside of every package I received from them had a cloth wrapper that was sealed with wax, pretty much identical to this one: https://eyeglassretailerreviews.com/reviews/goggles4u_nov200...

Not the packaging matters all that much, but it was a fun little novelty, at least.

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...)

I have a really wide head, but a relatively narrow face. I have a lot of problems with fit as well as style as a result. I just went to Costco and tried on every pair of glasses they had, figured out what style looked best, took the measurements off the frames that fit, and used that to order glasses online. Costco's profit comes from their membership fees rather than selling anything, so you don't have to feel bad about not buying anything (since you already have a membership).

The one thing I need to look out for is how the hook on the arm is constructed. One of my ears is slightly farther back than the other (by maybe 2 millimeters). If I buy frames where the arm can't be readjusted the glasses can rest a bit askance on my face.

> Costco's profit comes from their membership fees rather than selling anything

Membership is key both because its essentially zero cost, and because paid membership motivates choosing Costco as the place to make purchases (one reason Costco sells so,much more per unit of floospace than, e.g., WalMart), but Costco, absolutely, does make profits from sales, even if its margins are fairly low.

Well, their stated goal is to only make as much profit as is needed to cover their expenses. I personally don't consider that profit, but the price they sell goods for is indeed greater than the cost they bought them for.

Surely salaries have to be taken into account? If they fill their boots ratger than shareholder profits customers still pay.

While more expensive than Zenni, Warby Parker will ship you empty frames for size testing, so you can be confident of the fit.

The zenni website shows the frame width (and other dimensions) in millimeters for each pair of glasses. I've ordered over a dozen of pairs over the last 3 years and the measurements are accurate.

Measure the width of your current pair that you like. You're may be 150mm+ in width and zenni has sizes even bigger than that.

I also have a wide face. I used Warby Parker's home try-on and ended up finding a pair I liked that was 145mm in width. A lot of their "wide" frames didn't fit me either, and the one I chose was probably one of four or five in total they offered that fit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAeHuDcy_bY Related Adam Ruins Everything episode.

I agree that mid-lower-range shops are a racket: however, don't discount the luxury and privilege of high-end options of dedicated professionals. My glasses cost in total almost $1000. I wear them almost every waking moment, they are exceptional designer hand-made frames from France with Zeiss lenses and Japanese transition technology, and the optometrist is top-of-the-line who also does an eye cancer check each year. They are a beautiful piece of art that I chose, because I find contact lenses troublesome and I enjoy taking my glasses off to both relax and for the pleasure of having a blurred world around me (other short-sighted users will understand this pleasure). When I was a student, I wore $25 government-sponsored glasses. I'm so pleased there are options for both. I'm so glad there are $1 glasses for those who need them and can avoid overpaying for low quality.

At that price, I would consider laser surgery.

I'd be subject to presbyopia, and prefer to wear bifocals.

By the way, "short-sighted" in American English universally means "lacking in imagination or foresight". Not that you're obliged to accommodate American English, of course, but "nearsighted" is the equivalent.

Every eye doctor I've been to in the last decade has done an eye cancer check, I think that's standard.

Right, that's the point: the chain stores don't have doctors, they have people who are trained to use machines and don't check for anything except getting your prescription.

I had overall good experience with Zenni. One downside is that their rimless frames are not particularly sturdy; but then, for the price that I pay for them, it's still cheaper to just order a new frame.

I didn't have any problems with tint, fishbowl, or other optical abberations. This is with -4 correction on both eyes.

I know frames are a racket but what about lenses? Are Carl Zeiss lenses really that much better than other brands?

I tried Zenni Optical's oleophobic coating (finger-print resistance) and didn't notice any improvement when compared to a lense without any coatings... but besides that, I am happy with their glasses so far.

> You do need your pupillary distance, but you either measure this yourself with the help of a friend, or ask your optometrist.

One site just asked for a selfie with a card (anything credit card sized) held over your forehead.

Amusingly effective.

Also a great phishing scheme!

Seriously though I used a site like this to find out my IPD for playing VR and it came out slightly different each time, though always in the same ballpark.

I also do this. I used optical4less and highly recommend it. I got high quality mineral glass lenses and they were great. Can't go back to polycarbonate after those.

Unless you're completely price sensitive or completely brand or specific style dedicated, I think this is totally wrong.

I tried a number of different companies online during off years (I have insurance that pays for glasses every two years). Warby Parker, Zenni, glasses.com and a few others.

Warby Parker glasses were junk. With the exception of glasses.com, adjustments required paying or scamming someone into adjusting them for me. The money savings were minimal compared to retail if you shop around at all.

This time I went to an actual optometrist and bought glasses through them. The cost was competitive and the process completely hassle free.

Same here. I get my prescription through insurance and go to Costco for glasses.

Great customer service, frame selection and very competitive pricing. I can buy $10 glasses online or $60 from Costco.

I spend the extra money for the quality and service. It is, after all something you use everyday.

If they tell you that buying glasses online is evil, they likely work for Luxottica:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h7H-_8UkmFU

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica

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

>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.

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