Amazon recalls eclipse glasses | Hacker News Reader

Amazon recalls eclipse glasses

kgw.com

290 pointsalister246 comments

I ordered the top-rated eclipse glasses on Amazon a few months ago and they were counterfeit.

If you put them on during daytime you can see indirect sunlight and even my kitchen light. They were shipped from China despite having "Made in the USA" markings and all the proper ISO certification fine print.

I haven't received any communication from Amazon, so people who haven't heard from them should not assume their glasses are safe (contrary to Amazon's statement). I contacted Amazon support and they were quick to initiate a refund. For some reason Amazon rejected my review warning that items from third party sellers may be counterfeit and explaining how to tell.

Here are a couple photos of the counterfeits: https://goo.gl/photos/1XRKw8KBgo3hjHx6A

It seems incredibly careless of them to tell people if they did not get an email they're OK. There's no way the impact from refunding everyone that bought any such product outweighs the coming lawsuits.

I feel bad for people about to be injured. But hopefully this will screw Amazon hard and make them change their ways.

Isn't it somewhat on the sellers who are willing to blind people for a buck? That's not ok even in China.

For a given SKU, Amazon commingles inventory, so who you bought from may not be the company who stocked the FBA shelf with the product. Surely Amazon can trace it back, but I think Amazon lost the "just a marketplace" defense a long time ago as a result.

Is the process of commingling inventory documented? That policy is slightly alarming. What would stop someone from sending boxes full of rocks to the fulfillment center with the sku of an iPad?

When you sell products through Amazon FBA (ship to Amazon, and they sell and ship it with the Prime logo), they give you the option to commingle inventory for most products if they have a UPC on them. They scan the UPC and then credit your account with 1 of the product. Your product is then mixed in with the rest [0].

[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId...

They put some sort of deadly chemical in baby milk to make it more frothy, because that's a sign of more protein... they don't give a shit ("they" being some turbo-capitalists...).

No, "they" are not "turbo-capitalists." "They" are criminals. Or were, in any case. At least some of the executives responsible for that incident were executed.

You say that like there's a difference.

There most certainly is a difference. Have you been to China? These "turbo-capitalists" are all Communist Party connected scumbags that literally would rather see people die and make a yaun than worry about safety.

Parts of China is pure filth. There is no quality control until bad PR surfaces. Then it's all about saving face.

Here in the US, I think we've seen what the rhetoric of false equivalency gets us. Go peddle that somewhere else.

It was a more mundane horror. The melamine acts as a filler but also tests as protein. In the body it causes kidney trouble. In the end, 0.001% of the babies fed the adulterated formula died. (3 out of 300000). That makes being fed the tainted formula roughly as deadly as traveling 500 miles in a car in the United States.

So it wasn't a case of adding deadly poison, it was a case of adding an almost safe ingredient because the manufacturers needed to get their cost down to compete. Amazingly, it appears that melamine was even too expensive and they bought scrap melamine from the manufacturing process which was not pure enough to be used in plastics, beacuase it contained the actual kidney damaging chemical rather than just the precursor.

Lots of detail in the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

Speaking as somebody who has chronic kidney disease but is very much not dead (last I checked), I feel compelled to point out that the car analogy omits the vast majority of the people impacted, many of whom will have lifelong battles with cardiovascular health and increased risk of serious illnesses (e.g. gout). Kidney damage is permanent and irreversible. Renal tissue does not regenerate.

Just because only six babies died from acute kidney damage (according to the article you linked, which does not quite agree with your numbers) does not mean that's where the damage ends. Evidently there were 54,000 babies who were impacted severely enough to be hospitalized -- that's 18%, a far cry from 0.001%, and most definitely not an indication that an ingredient is "almost safe". Ignoring 53,997 of them makes your analogy incomplete to the point of being specious.

Amazon is already selling large quantities of food, food-supplements, and OTC medications.

I'm wondering how these practices have been able to go on without any reports of poisoning.

Ironically, Amazon requires additional verification and approval to sell in the Food/Grocery sections, but not Health & Personal Care.

I'm a lot more concerned about potential counterfeit medication than I am breakfast cereal.

You most certainly have to get ungated for H&B.

http://www.fbamaster.com/ungate-health-beauty-grocery/

If I recall correctly, the process for Grocery and H&B have the same requirements. I am ungated for both.

I just checked my "Soluna" glasses - I can see a high watt bulb in a lamp, previously I couldn't see any lower watt bulb :/

It looks like a lot of crazy people are going to trust their eyesight to a cheap piece of plastic from some company they've never heard of. Hope for the best.

No they are trusting Amazon.

*They are not understanding how Amazon resellers works

Which is very much the way Amazon set it up to work.

Hell, I understand Amazon extremely well, yet still got confused when a Prime item that wasn't FBA never showed tracking information (stuck in Preparing for Shipment), had wife email Jeff Bezos and not more than 10 minutes later the damned thing arrived. The whole time I was thinking "WTF, Amazon?" wondering why it was taking so long to fulfill the order, all because I didn't notice the absence of three words on the product page.

So yeah, point of the anecdote: even veteran Amazon shoppers can forget how the site works.

Prime item that wasnt FBA = MF Prime. Appears there was an error from the seller uploading tracking info. If that occurs frequently (more than 2%..? of orders) the seller will no longer be able to offer MF Prime.

Your email to Jeff had no effect whatsoever.

I assume your understanding of Amazon is from a consumer perspective only?

> Your email to Jeff had no effect whatsoever.

You're right, though I did get a $30 credit out of it.

> I assume your understanding of Amazon is from a consumer perspective only?

Yes, but I'm generally aware of how Amazon works behind the scenes as well. I know the difference between FBA and MF Prime, but even so I had managed to overlook it until the item arrived and my wife had already sent the email.

>some company they've never heard of

A company I've never heard of, but one that NASA specifically recommended as safe, and that Amazon was supposed to verify as the real manufacturer.

I am not an expert, so take this with a grain of salt: but you cannot visually check whether it blocks ultra-violet or infrared. So, this visual inspection seems bogus to me, since you cannot be sure whether all wavelengths are blocked.

Be careful!

This is correct. Visual inspection can't verify glasses, but it can identify clearly fake ones. Being able to see a house light through these glasses is a bad sign IMO.

This has happened for 2 brands of glasses I've ordered, 1 from Amazon & 1 from manufacturer directly.

Guess I won't be looking at the sun :)

Amazon should do a sampling of inventory and check whether they pass or not.

And it may happen to be that blocking the visual with the counterfeits also blocks the invisible wavelengths. Or it may not.

There should be some statistical evidence provided.

I did read from one of the recommended manufacturers that they tried to warn Amazon about this for months. They also tested them and they appeared safe in the tests they ran even though they were not legitimate.

But only Amazon knows what they have actually sold.

Heh, when I was a kid I remember our "eclipse viewing equipment" was a piece of glass blackened over a gas hob or a lighter. If someone's dad had access to welding equipment then welder's mask worked just as well.

I don't mean to say that people shouldn't take safety seriously - just saying that it's interesting how we used homemade solution to this and don't have any (obvious) sight problems.

Welder's mask (specifically a number 14 filter) is one of the recommended ways to safely watch an eclipse :)

Shade 14 is key, as common welding Masks are only Shade 5 and still cause eye damage if used

to be clear gas welding masks are 5, its more like wearing sunglasses.

arc welding gear is generally around 10-11.

many newer electronic helmets go up to 13/14 which is enough, you have to remember to turn up the sensitivity on the sensors so that its always dark. otherwise it will stay open at around 3-4

If yours also claim to be manufactured by American Paper Optics, as the pair in the parent comment claim to be, the (real) manufacturer has some information to help determine if they're counterfeit:

https://www.eclipseglasses.com/pages/safety

See the photo at the very bottom of the page for an illustration of the (very minor) differences.

Hey, I got some from APO directly -- I can still see my new, high wattage kitchen light thru them. This shouldn't be possible, right?

The sun still hurts my eyes if I look close to it so.. looks like I'm out of luck.

I think it's normal that you would be able to see the filament, no?

Top-rated on Amazon, and shipped from China on the same product seems kind of suspect. It's pretty rare for a top-rated item to be fulfilled by a party other than Amazon.

Any chance you can share a link to the item?

Here's a link to the item:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N9T9CZL

The seller that sold me the glasses is no longer listed. The only remaining seller is the actual manufacturer.

I have ordered these as well. I believe I have the correct ones. For example, I can stare directly at two CFLs and see nothing. Sunlight I can see the sun, and the sun bouncing off like a car window really bright.

The Amazon seller, GSM, assured me in a comment that if in my order history GSM Sales is listed I should be good to go, and it is.

I don't believe mine shipped from China or anything as they were ordered with other Amazon Prime products so I'm not even sure how that would work.

I bought mine 4 months ago, and they looked right too, but I got an email as well. Which is fine. I ended up getting verified ones from my father-in-law's astronomy club.

I too made this mistake and can see my kitchen light with these glasses. They didn't send me an email about the recall. Amazon will refund the money if you chat with them, but this in no way absolves them. I blame them fully. This counterfeit problem has been going on for years and they haven't addressed it, other than banning accounts of people who return too many of their shitty, counterfeit products. If people do get injured, I hope there are extreme punitive damages. Unfortunately, people will have to get hurt before anything changes. Fuck Amazon.

I really hope that some massive lawsuits finally put and end to this. Amazon deserves anything bad that comes their way. The amount of fake items I've received from them is awful.

Are you getting fake items when you order from Amazon, or when you order from a third party through Amazon?

I have the exact opposite situation. I got 9 pairs of plastic framed glasses on Amazon. They seem really legit. Only thing I can see through them is the sun unless I hold a light source directly up to the lenses. Amazon gave me a refund and told me not to use them. I'm going to try to research some more research on Monday like getting a hold of the company that gave them the ISO rating.

This is apparently the source of the glasses although the seller was third party. I don't want to toss out perfectly good glasses because Amazon freaked out and banned anyone not on an exclusive list of suppliers.

http://www.prosolareclipse.cc/products_list.html

Is it really worth your eyes and the extra money to take a risk on the glasses that you're still not giving up on them and planning on researching them? Why not just buy one that you know is reputable?

At this stage of game they will be hard to get, many of the "legit" suppliers have 100+ minimum orders right now.

The Eclipse is 1 week away after all

As far as I can tell, they're basically not available at this point, even in areas far from the path of totality.

Where would you suggest one could get one?

Here in South Carolina Lowe's still has them in stock in the local stores, though only as part of some "Eclipse Kit".

I got binoculars, sunglasses, and a camera filter at Best Buy. I had to have them ship the camera filter but it arrived much earlier than they said.

See if any local welding supply stores have #14 or higher glass (or helmets) in stock. Some auto-shades can go that high, but many cap out at #13, and they're generally going to be >$300 for the ones that can darken to $14 or higher. If you end up using an auto-shade helmet you'll have to set the sensitivity and delay to their maximum values. Don't buy an auto-shade helmet that doesn't have these controls. It's also possible to stack a #10 welders glass plate inside an auto-shade helmet and tune the shade value to get to #14 if the auto-shade can't get that dark on its own. It should be impossible to see anything but the sun through the helmet + glass combination.

The default for me is definitely not to use them, but if there is info that will vindicate the glasses I'd like to find it.

Not being able to see through them doesn't mean anything, unless you can see UV.

Hey, since I have the same glasses, this is what search lands me.

AAS approved - https://eclipse.aas.org/resources/solar-filters

Someone on this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jmdo5jJIeQ) got this ISO certification - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5zcT8x8808gOE82aks3NUpPSTA...

Another product page - https://www.daylightsky.co.uk/collections/eyeware/products/p...

I think they might be safe enough.

Update: Looks like the seller "Tried and true products" is Joseph Harwood, who works at this company, https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09572536/officers which owns the trademark Daylight sky, https://trademarkalertz.com/owner/DE-BIRD%20LIMITED "Tried and true products" also sells de-bird products. I guess they might just be sister companies or something.

Update: Just make sure yours are not counterfeit.

http://www.prosolareclipse.cc/imageRepository/dff59a28-760c-...

This is why I bought my glasses from an astronomical equipment store. I really hope this clusterfuck causes amazon to get their act together in regards to fraudulent listings.

> This is why I bought my glasses from an astronomical equipment store.

And where do you think that place got their glasses from?

This is my concern. Regarding the supply chain, perhaps the (re)sellers are not aware of the goods being counterfeit. Chinese manufacturers have been known to adjust product without informing the brand. Brands don't usually have someone spot checking every item that rolls off the assembly line. These glasses are one-off purchases and I'd assume demand is multiple orders of magnitude higher than normal. Corner cutting at the manufacture in China is where I'd start investigating. Again, more often than not, a Chinese manufacturer (boss) would rather deliver unsafe products and save face then to tell the buyer I can't make them. Especially smaller fly-by-night "factories" that are constantly appearing in the countryside or factories facing a giant surge in demand.

I could write a book re: Fake China.

As a comparison to the counterfeits, I took some pictures of my 'real' Soluna glasses, which I ordered a couple weeks ago from Amazon (and didn't get an email.) Also they pass the manufacturer's tests for verifying real glasses. 100 W equivalent CFL is very dimly visible.

http://imgur.com/a/5hMfu

I've been testing mine with a red laser pointer (NOT into my eye!). The glasses reflect a lot, even at a high angle. What does get through does not project beyond the filter itself, and is very dim, even in a darkened room (yes, I'm being careful, I know a reflection can cause damage). When I look at a 100W equiv CFL bulb, it resembles what you photographed. I've also looked briefly at my smartphone flash when in flashlight mode, it is quite dim and 'shifted' toward yellow. Just wondering if I can extrapolate these into a transmission spectrum.

I'm leaning toward throwing on an ordinary UV blocking pair of sunglasses on top and then limiting my time anyway, you can basically see the same thing with the pinhole technique. This is a risk I would take for myself, if my children were still young I would not risk their eyes, nor do it in front of them and tell them they couldn't.

Also, I can distinctly remember staring directly at the sun as a (dumbass) kid on multiple occasions for as long as I could stand it.

"Also, I can distinctly remember staring directly at the sun as a (dumbass) kid on multiple occasions for as long as I could stand it."

Yes, nature has made it so that we can't do that and harm ourselves, since the sun has been there for a long time. The problem is precisely that during the eclipse you'll be able to "stand it" for much, much longer. Eclipses don't happen often enough for us to be protected against them, and I also have to imagine most animals aren't as fascinated with them as we are...

The other issue is that your pupils are dilating with the darkness, allowing way more UV into the eye.

I can get why Chinese would manufacture items and then slap on a logo and resell it for much higher price, but what kind of person ships something that could blind a user for s couple bucks? Insane.

Reading the comments here, I wonder if folks have read the article? The problem seems to be not that Amazon has recalled counterfeit items but rather they have recalled legitimate product, blaming the legitimate seller for the fact that Amazon can't keep straight where their safety-critical inventory came from. It is as if they have a bin for "Viagra" in the warehouse into which they put shipments from Pfizer, along with whatever comes in from their eBay-grade sellers. Then they blame Pfizer for the eBay drugs not being properly traceable and tested.

Source: I received the emails, read the article, and at least one of the products I received is certainly not counterfeit.

I've heard of retailers complaining of the same thing over the past few years. I don't know what really goes on, but certainly mixing multiple suppliers of stock in the same bin is a huge headache when counterfeit products get mixed in. Legitimate retailers get bad reviews and customers don't get what they pay for.

I have received a counterfeit product from Amazon and I thought they were going to handle it excellently, but then they dropped the ball asking me to return a dangerous item to the seller for them to pass it on to the next person. I refused and fortunately got a refund, but all the effort was on me.

Amazon wanted the savings of commingling without the expense and investment in proper systems for it. For accurate accounting of the source of a piece of commingled inventory, you need sku-level inventories with unit-level accounting. This is expensive, because it means each unit needs to be individually marked (e.g. a sticker with a unique ID number) upon receipt, which is more labor intensive than just counting them and sticking them on a shelf.

Amazon's sku and bin level accounting works perfectly fine for items that have a single origin. Shoehorning commingled inventory into that same system doesn't work. It was reckless, and they should bear the punative cost for its results.

Well, what amazes me is that it seems to have be done this way for a long time, no?

If so, it has a very low amount of problems and complains, since they could grow so big. If bad suppliers were a constant, they would be bad-mouthed enough and wouldn't have grown that big.

Or their inner working is better than this article implies...

With the current system there's no way to know which supplier is a bad supplier: there's just a bucket of mixed legitimate & counterfeit inventory.

It's been a huge problem for a long time with items like cologne and clothing.

Or they're a big enough seller that their (basically) monopoly position allows them to generally ignore bad feedback.

The article does not say Amazon commingled glasses from multiple sources.

Before I purchased eclipse glasses from Amazon, I first checked with NASA for approved brands, purchased an approved brand, and have not received a recall email from Amazon.

The fact is that we don't know what happened at Amazon, whether they commingled inventory or incorrectly included legitimate suppliers in the recall or if there were real issues with the products provided by the supplier in the article.

Short of an elaborate test apparatus, there is actually no way for a consumer to independently confirm they have safe glasses.

It's easy to make fakes that look exactly like the real thing. So a printed ISO code or brand name is only sufficient if the supply chain is secure.

And unfortunately, there have been plenty of stories lately about seeming lax stock management at Amazon that makes it hard to know exactly what you're going to get.

True, but we know that inventory commingling is an issue in general for Amazon so it seems reasonable to assume they have done so in this case given that there are two vendors cited who provided strong claims to have been selling proper product, but were still subject to the recall.

I ordered a variety of different products and so I can see which were recalled and which were not. Based on that sample my guess is that they recalled anything with the text "solar eclipse" in the description that they could not conclusively prove complied with the relevant human-eye exposure standards which include manufacturing, documentation and tractability requirements. This would have caught : truly unsafe product; safe product that lacked the necessary paper trail; safe product that wasn't manufactured in the approved facility; product that was never marketed for human eye protection; compliant product that couldn't be separated from the above categories due to Amazon inventory commingling.

> "Customers may have purchased counterfeit versions of legitimate products," an Amazon spokesperson said when asked about the issue.

Does this have to do with Amazon's practice of commingling goods from various sources together? I imagine in some warehouse, a big box of Panjwani's legit goods all mixed together with some not-so-good-goods.

This is exactly why I purchased my eclipse glasses directly from the manufacturer (American Paper Optical) even though shipping from them was very expensive (relative to the cost of the glasses). Even if I'd bought a reputable brand directly from Amazon (instead of a reseller) I had no trust that I wouldn't get a counterfeit commingled from an untrustworthy reseller inside Amazon's warehouse.

This is so frustrating to me. I want to buy makeup from amazon but there is no way to verify you're not getting fake products.

I can't find a link so not 100% sure it is a true story but I was told (from a normally reliable source) of a L'Oréal factory in Russia many years ago which was producing shampoo. Unknown to L'Oréal was the fact that at night the factory would run producing counterfeit shampoo with inferior products. L'Oreal found out when they started getting customer complaints from people losing their hair, and I think pulled from Russia.

I didn't know Amazon did this. It'll make me think twice next time I purchase certain items.

After a quick search I found this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

Even though inventory tracked using the manufacturer barcode is commingled within the network, the source of the inventory is tracked by our fulfillment systems and is taken into consideration if inventory problems arise.

Given the article, it seems they're not completely sure what was sent where. It would seem that using the manufacturer barcodes in Amazon's network opens you up to an unexpected risk.

Never buy an Apple USB charger from Amazon, 90% of them are fake.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13343682/fake-apple-char...

Never buy any Apple product from Amazon. I've been burned several times. Didn't realize it until I had already bought several products.

I've been pretty pleased with my MacBook air, for big ticket items like iPod/iPhone/Macbook do you think there's significant risk of counterfeit?

You're more likely to get a brick or clay than you are an actual counterfeit.

Funny you got donwoted the exact last time amazon inventory practices were under scrutiny here at hn there was plenty stories of people getting empty boxes and ipad cardboard cutouts

edit: dug out that discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13924546

but there are plenty similar.

Just tried to sell 2 ipod nano's on Amazon today, I had to get approval to sell Apple branded items with an invoice or an authorisation from Apple that I'm a reseller.

90% of ones Apple bought. They probably have a good idea of which sellers are authorized to begin with and therefore didn't buy from those.

As I understand it, doesn't really matter what seller you buy from. Amazon says "The supplies all said these are the same item, so they're interchangeable" and they treat all the inventory the same regardless of who it came from.

Maybe legit sellers that aren't "fulfilled by Amazon" are safer because they ship it themselves?

That's only for sellers that opt in to commingling. Plenty of sellers don't.

Yeah, but you can't tell as a purchaser.

Are you sure it is not the other way around, that you have to opt out as a seller?

Anecdotally, a friend of mine runs a company that produces a unique fitness product, never opted into any kind of co-mingling as far as I know, as they are the only supplier in the world - and suddenly found themselves with comingled fake stock.

You have to opt in as far as I know because the full name is stickerless comingled. It has its benefits but the sellers I know refuse to touch the stuff because of the potential issues.

This is incorrect, kind of. There are essentially 3 ways to sell on Amazon. 1. Amazon can buy your product wholesale and they sell it. The manufacturer still has a lot of control on pricing and listing and etc. But Amazon has more control. In this case Amazon uses the UPC (or equivalent) to come up with the ASIN. In this case any 3rd party seller can list the same item with the UPC and it will show up on the same listing. They can even sell it via FBA where it is labeled as prime and stocked in Amazon's warehouses and if priced cheaper then will often get the buy box. So you could have 1000 positive reviews for your product and then all of a sudden a counterfeiter ships Amazon a bunch of what they say is the exact same product with the same UPC and it gets listed on the same listing. They can even make these stand out more by making variations on the product that then show up (like a 2-pack) that maybe you never sold.

Secondly there is Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA) this is when you sell the products and Amazon takes a commission and all the fulfillment fees to store and ship the product for you. In this case the seller has MUCH MUCH more control over every aspect of the listing. They can choose to have the ASIN generated by the UPC which can result in the same problem as above OR they can choose to have the ASIN generated by a number and barcode that is unique to the particular seller. This is called a FNSKU. Even if you know the FNSKU number which would be on a barcode on the product, ONLY the particular seller can create /ship product to Amazon using it. So Only the seller can variate listing or sell the product.

And thirdly you can do seller fulfillment which works list the last option in terms of listing, just with your own warehousing and fulfillment.

Or any type of wireless headphones. Not sure the percentage, but never got a pair that was real.

In fact I don't buy anything from Amazon anymore...

I buy everything from Amazon, including all my food. You make me wonder what I've been eating. Still, I can't see going back to fighting crowds at Safeway.

There's always Instacart, and many stores are offering order online and pickup (in Houston, I know of Walmart and Kroger) - no line to speak of, you have a scheduled time.

> Still, I can't see going back to fighting crowds at Safeway.

Safeway delivers

That's a pretty common practice in the Mfg industry. Makes lot tracking simpler.

The wording of the statement tells you the entire problem.

"The customer purchased a counterfeit item!"

Actually, no. The customer purchased an authentic item but Amazon shipped the customer a counterfeit item. Guess whose responsibility that is?

Curious if this commingling applies to third party seller (Amazon seller accounts) only or if it also includes items marked as "ships and sold by Amazon" at time of purchase.

I could see Amazon having enough volume of the items they sell directly that they have less need to do this commingling, and of course they have some incentive to preserve their own image.

Yes, commingling can be, and often is, a source of fake goods hiding in a legit ASIN. I have never and would never commingle. Remember Amazon workers checking in goods are not checking for authenticity.

I purchased my glasses off the website in the comments directly below bc this is one thing I did not trust Amazon on.

Also, I'll play devil's advocate, but this is one area where eBay actually wins over Amazon as each listing is tied to 1 particular seller and viewing seller history on eBay is rather easy compared to Amazon.

It would be nice to know from a listing if a product is eligible for commingling and whether the item I'm buying is commingled or stickered. I would pay more to not purchase commingled items from Amazon.

I do feel sorry for the legit sellers bc they are going to lose ALOT of money, many through no fault of their own. I haven't been on my private groups in a while but I'm sure I "know" a few of the sellers.

Interesting... the real issue here is Amazon's long-standing implicit tolerance of counterfeit goods from disreputable suppliers. I wonder how many more incidents like this it will take before Amazon finally does something.

They won't until consumers wise up. I've stopped using them completely, not worth the gamble.

Their price advantage has eroded anyways. I don't see any advantage to buying from them relative to straight from the manufacturer most of the time.

Amazon has done a great job squeezing shipping costs and margins. I doubt I pay more than 5% more on anything but I know I'm not getting any fakes

Amazon is de-facto a monopoly. The "invisible hand" does not apply here.

That's what the civil court system is for. Nothing invisible about that hand. They are in a world of $#!+ if anyone receives permanent eye damage from counterfeit glasses purchased on Amazon, especially if their insane "inventory commingling" policy turns out to be implicated.

The article only talks about the sun appearing too bright through counterfeit glasses, but the real hazard is a pair of glasses that blocks out enough visible light to allow your pupils to dilate, letting in plenty of the UV they don't block.

I love how you spell $#!+.

No, Amazon is not a monopoly, they are a very large and influential player. You can still buy eclipse glasses (and practically all other products) from other vendors, both physical and online. It may not be as smooth, cheap, fast or convenient as Amazon, but that's pretty damn far from the bar for a monopoly.

There was never any guarantee that the invisible hand would fix badness overnight, merely that it will nudge them in the right direction. Which it does.

Not anymore, you can't. Just about every supplier on the Internet is sold out at this point.

Amazon blew it when they invited 3rd party sellers. When it was just Amazon + Their Warehouse you knew what you were getting.

Even when it is fulfilled by amazon you don't have any guarantee it's not fake.

I wanted to buy some Tasty Bites meals. Normally I get them from Costco but they only have one kind and I wanted to try some other flavors. So I went online, found them on Amazon, and literally said to myself "I'd rather buy these directly from the manufacturer". So I went to tastybite.com and filled up my shopping cart and when I went to checkout, it redirected to amazon.com which asked if it was okay to put these items in my Amazon cart.

This isn't limited to glasses. I purchased a 12x12 sheet of solar filter film from a seller on Amazon, manufactured by Thousand Oaks Optical (who are listed on the American Astronomical Society's list of reputable vendors), and I'm also being refunded.

I checked the Thousand Oaks Optical site and they have a list of legitimate resellers of their products, and the Amazon seller I used is listed. I'm surprised Amazon didn't do the same basic checks before e-mailing me.

When I was searching for more information after receiving the e-mail, I also found someone on an astronomy forum[1] who is being refunded for a telescope that appears to retail for around $1199.

[1] https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/587658-amazon-eclipse-gla...

I've gotten counterfeit body wash (Shiseido Super Mild) and counterfeit microSD cards off Amazon, and, ironically, the only things I buy off amazon.com now are books, because if they're counterfeit, it'll be obvious, and it certainly won't cause me any harm.

Everything else I'd rather buy from the manufacturer (and pay the full, unsubsidised shipping cost -- not Amazon Prime) or a reputable distributor (digi-key/mouser for electronics, CS Hyde for films/tapes, etc). The prospect of having my eyes fried because of counterfeit PPE is kinda horrifying.

> the Amazon seller I used is listed

If it was "fulfilled by Amazon", it doesn't matter what seller you chose, you could have been sent a counterfeit item from another seller.

Sellers using fulfillment-by-Amazon send their stock to Amazon's warehouse, where it gets thrown in the same bin as all the other stock of that item from everyone else selling it. When it gets pulled to ship to you, there's no guarantee you get one that came from the authorized seller, versus a counterfeit someone else sent in with the same SKU.

Sellers can opt-out of commingling inventory at extra cost but most don't. Given you got a proactive refund, that seller probably has commingled inventory with everyone else, and Amazon is worried they sent you a fake that'll get someone injured and cause them liability.

Seriously? I am very surprised. Surely Amazon cannot ignore this counterfeit product problem. Doing this looks like opening an avenue for litigation.

They've been ignoring it for years.

Are they actually liable? If so, we should have seen class acts by now no?

That's what I would've expected too, but it seems not. Then again, if you still have eyes after this event you might see others filing class acts afterwards.

Mandatory binding arbitration. You may not sue amazon in a court of law.

Binding arbitration is generally not allowed with respect to product liability suits, except in the Eleventh and Fifth Circuits.

Not only are there massive amounts of counterfeit products on Amazon, they also encourage it by letting the sellers fake reviews. Here's how they do it:

* Collect positive reviews on a cheap article.

* Change the product, but not the article ID. The new article then has the reviews of the old one.

* Finally, they lock the reviews by setting the article to "not released yet", even though the product is for sale.

That way, you get positive reviews for a shitty product and customers can't add negative reviews.

Amazon don't do anything about this, even though it's clearly deceptive and, at least here, against the law.

Buying any PPE from Amazon is probably a bad idea. Counterfeit or not, the barrier to entry is just too low.

eg, there are specialized climbing harnesses on Amazon which confuse the CE EN standard and the concept of notified bodies. (Which certify conformity.) Leads to hilarity like a climbing harness claiming conformity with the standards for intubation tubes.

Or, climbing equipment which is mislabeled as to its country of origin, with basic specs like dimensions being inaccurate.

The sellers just don't care, and Amazon doesn't care enough to stop them. It's barely one step above ebay for a lot of items.

> It's barely one step above ebay for a lot of items.

Is it, though? At least with eBay I know who the product I ordered came from and whom to blame if something goes wrong. If I'm ordering from the manufacturer's official account on eBay I know I'm not getting sent a cheap Chinese knock-off by some other random eBay seller.

With Amazon I apparently don't have that luxury.

I prefer eBay for a lot of stuff now.

Amazon is, for me, full of bafflement pricing.

Trying to work out what I need to buy to get free shipping becomes impossible because of the Prime Only deals, the Add On items, the difference in shipping between books only or other stuff.

Now I just buy all books from Wordery and everything else from eBay.

Here's the email I got, the last sentence had me chuckling. We hope to "see" you soon.

-------

Hello,

We’re writing to provide you with important safety information about the eclipse products you purchased on Amazon (order #---- for TOLOCO Solar Eclipse Glasses,CE and ISO Certified Safe Solar Shades Filter for Solar Eclipse Viewing (3-Black)).

To protect your eyes when viewing the sun or an eclipse, NASA and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) advise you to use solar eclipse glasses or other solar filters from recommended manufacturers. Viewing the sun or an eclipse using any other glasses or filters could result in loss of vision or permanent blindness.

Amazon has not received confirmation from the supplier of your order that they sourced the item from a recommended manufacturer. We recommend that you DO NOT use this product to view the sun or the eclipse.

Amazon is applying a balance for the purchase price to Your Account (please allow 7-10 days for this to appear on Your Account). There is no need for you to return the product. You can view your available balance and activity here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/gc/balance/

For more information about safely viewing a solar eclipse please see the NASA and AAS websites.

If you purchased this item for someone else, please pass along this information to the recipient.

We hope to see you again soon.

Sincerely,

Customer Service

They know they'll see you soon because they're not issuing refunds, they're giving you a balance credit at the big river instead.

"We hope to see you again soon."

Fairly poor choice of words..

They'll see you, but you may or may not see them.

What kind of piece of shit makes these things? It's one thing to make a crappy knockoff phone charger. It may be less efficient and even less safe, but you can probably rationalize it away since they mostly work OK.

But this is a piece of safety equipment with a single function, and people only buy it to use it in one way, which will cause direct and immediate harm if the product fails. How can someone live with themselves after doing this?

> How can someone live with themselves after doing this?

By being able to feed their family and keep shelter over their heads.

At least that's the only charitable explanation I can think for the absolutely shocking lack of respect for human life that comes out of China (see fake food, gutter oil, electrical safety, construction scandals etc etc)

>What kind of piece of shit makes these things?

People like my ex's dad. Not involved with this in particular, but lots of fake/knockoff/cheap Chinese shit. Dude is rich as fuck. Rich enough to have bought her a $750k house with cash a few years ago, like it was nothing. Don't know if anything he was involved with ever actually harmed anybody, but from what I've heard he'd have no qualms about it. I'm sure whoever is responsible for this is similar. No rules in China if you're fucking over foreigners. At least none that you can't just bribe your way out of.

"Après moi le déluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation. Hence Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society."

--Karl Marx

s/labourer/consumer/

You know, it does seem like some people need to be reminded that China is nominally Communist.

("It's not real Communism." But it's a real outcome of the attempt to create Communism, so it counts just fine.)

The thing is, if you want safety, what you want is a separation between the manufacturer and the regulator. In Communism, the manufacturer and the regulator are de facto the same entity. Communism lacks any entity that is capable of coming out and saying independently that there's a problem. If you've ever complained about "regulatory capture", you've just explained why Communism is non-functional; Communism institutionalizes 100% total regulatory capture from day one and holds it up as an ideal.

I doubt the factories making these faulty eclipse glasses are government-owned. The problem here isn't that it's the same entity on both sides, the problem is just that the regulator doesn't care.

While I have no experience with sellers in this field, I once had a conversation with a vendor who sold 2GB FIFO USB sticks as 64GB USB sticks. This does not exactly blind people, but customers who use these for backups are in for a rude surprise.

The seller confessed to the fraud, but was utterly unrepentant.

I'm trying to have the same conversation with "Microsoft Support" callers trying to install ransomware in my computer. Not much luck getting answers out of that crowd, but no pangs of conscience either.

You should listen to the latest episodes of Reply All podcast. They go pretty far to investigate one of those tech support call centers.

There is a part two as well.

https://gimletmedia.com/episode/long-distance/

>'Amazon said customers who did not receive an email purchased glasses that were safe to use.'

Or they did receive an email and it went into their spam/junk folder. In a situation like this it might be better to email everyone if only to say your glasses are safe. Although that would open them to legal liability if they're wrong.

This. Even before the collapse of email as a writing medium, it was never a life-critical system.

Is there anything particularly dangerous about viewing the sun directly? When I was dumb and young I'd look at the sun for seconds at a time without any problems developing so far. Is the danger that an eclipse encourages you to stare at the sun without encountering any pain?

> When I was dumb and young I'd look at the sun for seconds at a time without any problems developing so far.

Hopefully this was during hazy sunsets. Or maybe you just have mega-strong pupils that can contract more than normal and that's why you're not blind.

> Is the danger that an eclipse encourages you to stare at the sun without encountering any pain?

Exactly. Human eyes aren't very good at handling ultra-high-dynamic-range scenes. During an eclipse, your surroundings are somewhere between twilight and night-time in brightness, so your pupils dilate. The small un-covered sliver of sun is still as bright as it is during the day, and can damage your eyes without triggering a painful 'too-bright' response. It's somewhat similar to the danger posed by a laser.

So did I, usually in while bored in class, so a window between me and the sun (blocking UV, for what that's worth). I'd stare until the sun developed an outline in my vision, then look elsewhere until the sunspot in my vision wore off, then I'd do it again.

But there are documented cases of eye damage, so the danger is real.

Exactly. The light doing damage isn't necessarily the visible light that gives you the impulse to avert your eyes, it's the UV. In one study, 50% of the people looking at the eclipse had caused permanent damage to their eyes (sans any precautions or averting their eyes).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/...

There's a short term condition called arc eye (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photokeratitis). Basically a sun burn on your eyes that heals after a day, and supposedly doesn't really have long term damage. I have experienced it several times (both from welding and hiking in the snow), and haven't noticed any major changes in my vision since.

I stared at a partial eclipse as a child without eye protection for several periods of about 10-12 seconds (remembering that I used to occasionally look at the regular sun for 3-4 seconds without apparent injury). Unfortunately, this gave me an afterimage of the eclipse in one eye that lasted for six months (!) -- although I was fortunate that it didn't last even longer than that.

The optometrist I consulted the day after the eclipse said that there didn't appear to be significant permanent damage to my eye, but the subsequent six months of the afterimage, and not being sure whether or not it would last my whole life, were certainly no fun. Overall, I feel like I got very lucky, and I wouldn't have been surprised if the afterimage had lasted for decades rather than months. Maybe it would have if I had continued looking for just a few more seconds!

My impression is that the risk of different kinds of damage is complicated, but there are several things that can go very wrong. One is that the sun during an eclipse is much more interesting than usual, so it's so much more tempting to look longer than momentarily; another is the UV exposure that people have mentioned (where there may still be enough UV to cause damage even at times when the visible light is weak enough not to cause significant discomfort). UV is a big factor that means that we shouldn't trust our intuition about whether something may harm our eyes. In industrial settings, too, people sometimes get significant eye injuries because they're staring at UV (or IR) sources that don't subjectively feel dangerous or painful.

(Edit: taneq in this thread also mentions a problem about dynamic range where your pupillary contraction may not be enough to protect you.)

While permanent damage might not happen quite as quickly as some people may have been led to believe, and some risks may be slightly exaggerated in certain accounts, there's just no reason to take the risk of not having proper eye protection, especially when you can't really judge from the level of discomfort or lack of discomfort whether damage may be happening. As far as I know, every eclipse leads to emergency follow-up optometrist visits, and I can testify that it's no fun to be the patient in one of those visits waiting to hear the news about whether the aftereffects are likely to be permanent.

As a child, I got to see a perfect full solar eclipse at mid day on a clear sky. I took the glasses off for a few seconds when the sun was perfectly behind the moon and it was amazing. It felt very comfortable to look at, no afterimage at all; except in my memory... The memory is still there after 15+ years.

When the sun is fully eclipsed, you can look at it without damage.

When it's not, you can't. But it may not appear "as bright" when it's partially eclipsed, it may be "easier" to stare at it, without reflexes kicking in to stop it, and do permanent damage to your eyes.

> although I was fortunate that it didn't last even longer than that

It's likely that some of the afterimage is still there but your brain has been rewired to eliminate it.

I've definitely considered that possibility, and I figure there's probably no way to know!

You can give yourself arc eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photokeratitis

I haven't gotten it from the sun, but I got a minor case of it from welding with the incorrect lenses (it may seem fine to use gas welding goggles for MIG welding, but it's really not). It's really not pleasant, your eyes feel all scratchy and too large for their sockets.

> It's really not pleasant, your eyes feel all scratchy and too large for their sockets.

I've had hints of that from welding when using a proper mask, but inadvertently not wearing a dark enough shirt (worst case is a white t-shirt - can bounce the UV up under the mask; it's not as bad as "arc eye", but can still be uncomfortable afterward).

Other welding safety lessons:

1. Be very careful welding on zinc-coatings (galvanized steel); have plenty of ventilation, and don't inhale any of the fumes (a fan to blow the fumes away can help). You can get zinc-poisoning, which feels like a very bad flu-like symptoms. I'm sure it can be fatal, but mostly you'll feel really terrible afterward, and there's no cure except to wait it out. Better - remove the galvanization (grinding or with pool acid), or use a respirator under your mask (specifically one rated for it - there's a particular one 3M makes that if you research this topic, people recommend).

2. Less known: Never weld on steel that has been cleaned using chlorine-based solvents (like certain kinds of brake cleaner). There's a tale out there from a guy who did it, and lived to tell about it. Basically, the intense heat creates a change in the chemical to form phosgene gas; even a small amount can kill you. This poor soul managed to live, but not without some major after-effects that will cause him trouble the rest of his life:

http://www.brewracingframes.com/safety-alert-brake-cleaner--...

Note that not all brake cleaners have chlorine (they are banned in California, for example), but this is one of those things that if you've never heard of it, but you find yourself welding (especially if you also do your own brake fluid changes or brake jobs, or other auto work) - and you clean your parts (hey, let's use brake cleaner - that'll do it!) - you wouldn't think there'd be a problem - until it's much too late.

Get the word out on this last one, too - not many people know about it (most welders know about welding on galvanized steel).

I too have stared at the sun for far longer than is recommended (30s+), and had no issues, but it certainly is a risk:

> In a study after an eclipse in Turkey in 1976, around 10%of [sic] those with damage had permanent visual loss to the extent that they were not able to read a car number plate at 25 yards (23 metres) with the affected eye or eyes.[0]

IIRC, an eclipse is particularly dangerous because the lack of light doesn't trigger your pupils to constrict as much or a "too-bright" response to look away, but the visible portion is still sufficient to cause damage.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1116382/

Just to add to the other replies, there's another thing very different about a partial eclipse vs. when you looked at the sun as a kid. You were looking at a full sun, not a smidgen of a sun. There was so much light hitting your eyes that they stopped down naturally, giving you some protection.

And there was so much bright light that you really couldn't look at it for very long without involuntarily looking away or closing your eyes. But of course if you kept looking at the sun no matter how much it hurt, you would damage your eyes.

In a partial eclipse, most of the sun is covered, and there is a lot less light reaching your eyes. So they don't stop down as much as they would for a normal full sun.

However, that fraction of the sun that is visible is just as bright as before! With such an interesting sight to look at, you will be much more tempted to stare. And with your pupils wide open, there is even more sunlight hitting that small area of your retina than there would have been in normal conditions.

Now if you are fortunate enough to experience the total eclipse, that is another matter entirely. It is perfectly safe to look at the solar corona during totality, even with binoculars! The corona is only about as bright as a full moon. The sun itself is completely blocked by the moon.

Until that instant when the sun 'pops' back out. Your widened pupils don't respond fast enough.

Your caution is well advised, but the sun doesn't instantly burn your retinas. You do get a tiny bit of time to look away before any damage is done.

I viewed the 1979 total eclipse with binoculars, and when totality ended and the diamond ring and Baily's beads started to appear, I lingered a few seconds longer than I should have, and still no harm was done. I didn't suffer any temporary or permanent vision damage, even viewing those through the binoculars.

My grandmother (at age 70) had a crescent-shaped burn on the back of her eye (edit: ie. retina) from viewing a partial eclipse as a child. She couldn't "see" the burn, likely because her brain adjusted to it.

My understanding is that the human eye has pain receptors that respond to wavelengths in the visible spectrum. As the moon occludes the sun, the level of visible light drops below the level where prolonged viewing causes pain.

But visible light is not the only frequency. Sunlight also contains UV and IR wavelengths. The human eye does not have pain receptors that respond to these frequencies.

The end result is that during an eclipse it becomes more likely that a person will fries their eyes due to the presence of UV and IR wavelengths.

zzalpha predicted this a couple of weeks ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14877216#14877731

Instead of risking my vision on some goofy glasses from an unknown supplier, I'm banking on recreating a small camera obscura setup that I did in elementary school. [1]

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/make-pinhole-projector.h...

Does anyone have good recommendations for getting a pair as of today (before next weekend)? I'm in the bay area, if that helps.

I just ordered a set from B&H Camera Store in NYC. These are the Lunt glasses that are mentioned in the article, but are also identified by NASA as "safe" [1]. I'm hoping that B&H does not suffer the same counterfeit problems as Amazon. Shipping from NYC to the Bay Area is still a concern though (I'm a lot closer to NYC and just got the e-mail that they shipped on yesterday's order).

[1]. https://eclipse.aas.org/resources/solar-filters

+1 for B&H. They're replaces amazon for all my audio and general electronics purchases. Generally the same prices without a chance of counterfeits.

I specifically ordered from B&H because I was familiar with them and felt I could trust them to have a legit product. The glasses are still in transit, but I should have them in time.

I bought some for $2 in a Fred Meyer (Kroger grocery store) that are certified safe. Those kinds of stores may not stock them further from the eclipse path, though.

They sold like crazy here. It's insane to think people order these online when they're right in the grocery stores.

My local Lowe's stocks them. I guess not many people know this because I wouldn't have guessed a "home improvement store" to sell eclipse glasses.

Awesome, thanks for the tip. I'll try Lowe's tomorrow.

Kroger and McDonald's in Oregon as well.

To be honest, it isn't that impressive unless you see the totality, in which case you need no glasses. Completely worth the trip out of the way if you can go see it.

I'll be in Oregon for the eclipse! I'm pretty excited. I haven't done much preparation yet, but I was imagining that it would be quite helpful to have the glasses for the minutes leading up to totality.

Even in the totality path, you'll want the glasses for the relatively much longer duration during which the sun isn't completely obscured.

Even in totality, the coolest part for me (1999 eclipse) wasn't the visuals - it was the way you could feel the cold/shadow set in during the eclipse.

Check out the retail section on the AAS reputable vendors list[0].

[0] https://eclipse.aas.org/resources/solar-filters

Check out Edumund's Scientific, they have them for $5 (+7$ s/h)

I checked their store, and was unable to find the item your talking about. Do you have a specific sku by chance?

https://www.scientificsonline.com/shop/solar-eclipse?Page=1

Just bought 2. 30 dollars (5 each, 20 dollars for fast shipping). Might not even need them as we have welding helmets, but I don't want to screw around concerning my eyes. Accidently got myself with a camera flash once, that was more than enough.

Thanks! Just placed an order.

Sadly these appear to be back ordered - just received e-mail saying so.

Libraries are giving them out for free. But call first, because many of them are out of stock or waiting for a shipment: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/libraries

What goes around comes around. Amazon has been turning a blind eye to counterfeit products for a long time, it's been getting worse, not better. And now that they got a clue this particular fraud could CAUSE WIDESPREAD BLINDNESS, they have to take responsibility for their own cesspool.

> turning a blind eye

Yeah I hope the discovery resulting from the lawsuit from this issue will be explosive enough to force Amazon to change. If it surfaces that they've been knowingly selling counterfeit products... Wow.

How do we still have issues with counterfeit products in 2017? There should be electronic records with audit trails for every shipment into the US. This ordeal is probably going to bankrupt several small businesses.

I'm not sure that helps much. You have the audit trail, find an issue. You inform China, and...nothing happens. Factory changes its name for the next shipment.

Blockchain could help solve this problem.

Because amazon hasn't been sued enough to care yet.

This problem specifically could be easily solved by not allowing any random seller to sell the same item on Amazon without the purchases having any idea.

I'm not sure what you mean. They do track everything, otherwise they couldn't match up your payment for the product with the vendor it actually came from in order to pay them.

The question is what else are Amazon willing to do with that information, which turns out to be very little or nothing because as soon as Amazon gets humans involved in the transaction making actual decisions, their costs shoot up.

> I'm not sure what you mean. They do track everything, otherwise they couldn't match up your payment for the product with the vendor it actually came from in order to pay them.

They don't, though. All the same-SKU items go into a big box at the warehouse. When you order from a particular seller, they pick one out of that box and send it to you. There's a good chance the specific one they picked out didn't come from that seller's inventory, but another's.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-amazon-pooled-merchandise-op...

I'm not sure what Amazon does (looks like they don't actually track) but from the consumer side you basically get a random item. Say you order a specific product, like a Macbook charger, Amazon sends you one from any number of vendors and you most likely get a counterfeit one and you have no idea who the product came from. Look at the reviews for a product like this you can often see a bimodal distribution of people who got a legit item and people who got junk.

Because Amazon makes too much money off it to do anything about it. They could easily track everything... but they obviously don't.

Because at every point between here and there people are more concerned with cutting costs than what "should exist".

In NL / Europe, Amazon would be shut down for selling counterfeit products. Or well, they would if it was e.g. brand name stuff. For this kind of thing, not sure. A recall and a fine for selling unsafe products probably.

If you don't trust Amazon's vendor commingling practices, be sure to test the film:

https://www.space.com/37698-solar-eclipse-glasses-safety-che...

This page seems to imply that you can tell if your glasses are safe by seeing whether they block out all but the brightest lights (direct sun or perhaps a LED flashlight).

But another page from the AAS seems to say you only get a negative result: if you can see anything other than a very bright light through the glasses, they're unsafe. But that doesn't imply the inverse, that if you can't, they're safe, because of UV protection. https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/iso-certification

Can anyone confirm if I've understood that correctly?

That's about right, we can't see (with our eyes at least) if the infrared or UV is being filtered.

> "We want customers to buy with confidence anytime they make a purchase on Amazon.com"

That's a bit rich, what with the 2nd hand camera lens scam the other day and all.

I once took for granted that that was in Amzn's best interests and thus their goal, but it really just seems like they're hoping to bank on consumar ignorance/apathy and being the biggest game in town.

It sucks because I recently picked up an amzn gift card from a change conversion machine (my bank now requires you roll your change yourself and I discovered those machines are fee-free if you use them for a giftcard), but I've fewer and fewer needs from Amzn now.

I'd say about 50-60% of the electronic items I buy from amazon end up being counterfeit. For this reason, I avoid amazon unless it's unimportant stuff.

Yup for me I would say over 30%. I'm sure Consumer Reports will do a study soon and find that near 50% are counterfeit and the stock will drop like a rock.

I was always taught to never view an eclipse directly with any kind of filter/glasses.

Use a simple lens, or even a pinhole, to project the image onto another surface and view it that way.

That's what we did in elementary school last time it happened in our area years ago. I believe we used a shoe box, took off the lid, poked a pin hole on one side and viewed it.

Here's a link to it's construction.

https://www.livescience.com/33906-solar-eclipse-viewer.html

I'd say the box the glasses come in from Amazon is probably more useful than the glasses in many cases. :)

This is excellent advice! I agree wholeheartedly.

Just to add one nuance, this is only needed for the partial eclipse. If you are viewing the total eclipse, use the pinhole projector for the partial phases. But during totality only, it is perfectly safe to view the solar corona with the naked eye, even with binoculars.

I went into more detail elsewhere in this thread; search the page for my username for more info.

How dangerous is it to watch a solar eclipse without proper dark glasses? I recall a Feynman story where he watched the first nuclear bomb test without eye protection, just through the window of a truck. Under the theory that normal glass filters most UV light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_retinopathy

The damage is usually reversible.. loss of vision returns usually within 12 months.

Well, Feynman was one of the most brilliant scientists in history, but he was also quite insane. (As one of his students, I say this with a great deal of love and respect for him!)

To answer your question, though, we need to distinguish between a partial eclipse and a total eclipse. You had best use eye protection for a partial eclipse, or even better, use a pinhole projector as I described elsewhere in this thread. (Search the page for my username.)

But a total eclipse is perfectly safe to view with the naked eye, and even with binoculars! You could use a telescope, but binoculars give you a better field of view. Either way, you're not looking at the sun any more, you're looking at the solar corona.

During totality, the sun is completely blocked by the moon itself. This is a much more substantial filter than anything you could ever buy on Amazon.

> But a total eclipse is perfectly safe to view with the naked eye, and even with binoculars!

But one must be careful. As soon as the moon stops blocking the sun, there are sun rays concentrated in a tiny point. Like looking at the point of a powerful laser, it doesn't feel as powerful as it actually is. Esp. regarding invisible wavelengths.

You don't need eclipse glasses.

If you are traveling to (or live in) the zone of totality, don't bother viewing the partial eclipse at all. It's not what you are there for. You are there to experience the total eclipse in all its glory, and you can't use eclipse glasses for that.

Your best viewing tool for the total eclipse is your own eyes and a good pair of binoculars. Yes, plain, unfiltered binoculars. During totality you can look directly at the solar corona. Not only do you not need eye protection, but you'll miss the whole thing if you use any kind of filter.

This is true only during totality, of course.

I recommend doing what hundreds of us did on an Oregon hillside in 1979. During the first partial phase, we put on sunglasses (just ordinary sunglasses) and looked away from the sun. The purpose of this was to get our eyes a bit dark-acclimated, so when it went total we would have an even better view.

By looking away from the sun, you also have a chance of seeing the other interesting effects on the ground: the wavy ripply patterns that appear just before totality, and the shadow of the moon as it rushes toward you at thousands of miles per hour!

As soon as the eclipse became total, people started yelling "totality!" and we took off our sunglasses, turned around, picked up our binoculars, and enjoyed the awesome experience of seeing the solar corona.

The only danger here is that you have to stop looking as soon as the first bit of the Diamond Ring or Baily's Beads appear. Then you're back into the partial eclipse and must use eye protection.

But at that point, most of us just cheered and got ready to go home. After totality, the partial eclipse is not much to get excited about.

If you're not in the zone of totality, then of course you must not look directly at the sun at any time. But if you don't have quality eclipse glasses, you still have some other good options.

One is a piece of #14 arc welder's glass. Another that you can improvise on the spot is a pinhole projector. There are various ways you can make one; at the simplest it can just be two pieces of paper, one that you punch a small hole in with a pin, and the other on the ground or a wall. Hold the paper with the hole so that the sunlight goes through it onto the other. You will get a nice image of the partially eclipsed sun projected onto the other paper.

A pinhole projector is the safest way to view the partial eclipse: you are never looking directly at the sun at all, only its projection.

There are numerous plans for building slightly more elaborate pinhole projectors. This page has some good tips:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/how-to-look-at...

Or search for "solar eclipse pinhole projector" to find more.

There is a lot of misinformation going around about eclipse viewing and eye safety. Everything above is true and correct to the best of my knowledge, speaking both from personal experience and extensive research. And I've tried to make very clear the difference between the partial and total eclipse. Of course, if I made a mistake or left anything unclear, please let me know!

There are two main dangers regarding eye safety. One is that someone may view the partial eclipse without proper eye protection and will destroy their vision. This has happened many times, and it is a real tragedy.

The other danger, albeit of a lesser sort, is that many people who travel to the total eclipse zone will mistakenly believe that they need some kind of eye protection during totality. As a result, they will completely miss the awesome, life-changing event they went to so much trouble to see.

I think they are useful to wear in the last minute before totality, simply as a safe way to determine when totality arrives. Without them it is too tempting to keep glancing up st the sun to see if it is total yet.

That is an excellent point; thank you for mentioning it!

Poorly handled by Amazon because the _absence_ of an email (there is no other way to tell, for example from the order page on the amazon web site) signifies that the glasses are safe. So if the email get spam filtered or otherwise doesn't reach the appropriate person, they have no idea that the product isn't safe. The order page should say "not safe" or "safe" so people can check themselves.

American Paper Optics made a page showing the differences between their glasses and some knock offs. https://www.eclipseglasses.com/pages/safety

This doesn't mean the shape can't also be copied perfectly though, so I'm not sure if it's helpful or just doing even more harm.

Selling "eclipse glasses", or anything else cheap that encourages people to look directly at the sun, is a terrible idea to begin with. All it takes is some muppet to misread (or ignore) the directions and the next thing you know, they're blind and you've got a lawsuit on your hands.

Talking out of your ass aside, ignoring directions and then suing gives you no recourse. If it did, Mcdonald's would not sell hot coffee.

This is one of the serious problems with FBA and serious problems with FBA's co-mingled inventory.

When I was selling inventory on Amazon, I actually paid the extra cash to have my inventory placed in a separate location so that I didn't have to deal with other seller's stock/quality issues. It was worth the additional cost (from my point of view) and it worked quite well in ensuring that Amazon's customers who sourced from my stock got the correct product and that I didn't have to deal with angry customers or unexplained returns.

So our metro library system (well respected) is promoting an eclipse education event, with free viewing glasses. Should the sourcing be suspect? (95% viewing area)

Many libraries have received glasses for free from the Space Science Institute, which is a reputable organisation funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation, and others.

There's a map of libraries on their website:

http://spacescience.org/software/libraries/map.php

If yours is on that list, you should be pretty safe, I think.

A viable safe test would be a clear (unfrosted) incandescent or halogen bulb on a rheostat. Glasses on, bulb off, turn up the brightness somewhat slowly. You should be able to look directly at the filament comfortably if you have good glasses. If you have fakes, as long as you ramp up brightness slow enough, your natural response to squint will kick in before you wreck your retinas.

You definitely do not want to test this on the sun.

How does it test the fact that glasses block UV part of the spectrum? That is where the damage is coming from not from the the visible part.

I posted 32 days ago asking how to tell if they are real [1]. Amazon informed me that they are fake. Unfortunately I have no way to buy glasses now and will use the pin whole method, but its pretty dissapointing. I hope no one gets hurt

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755020

I've got some extras that I'm willing to share. E-mail me your address and I'll mail you a pair. I'm in SoCal so they should arrive in SF in time for the eclipse.

I got mine directly from one of the NASA-approved suppliers, precisely because I don't trust Amazon anymore. Had to order a small batch, even though I only needed a few: I figured not going blind is worth ~$30.

Wow, thanks! What is your email? Mine is in my profile.

Hmm, I don't see it. Maybe my karma's not high enough? Looks like my e-mail's not visible either; sorry I'm not too familiar with HN's system.

Anyway, my e-mail is [HN account name] at x0.ms.

I just saw this. I appreciate you offering, but I missed my window as I will be out of town for a wedding. I appreciate the offer!

I'm not the person you're replying to, but I'd love to grab a pair from you too if you have extra :) ; and to pay for its cost / shipping to SF of course.

I bought a set of 15 supposedly iso certified and tested them all when I got them. Couldn't see light bulbs or anything else but the sun. I wonder if they seller sold a mix of counterfit or just wasn't able to get the certification to amazon as a bulk seller?

> Couldn't see light bulbs or anything else but the sun.

Are all the harmful wavelengths visible? What you don't see can hurt you (for instance, see the table at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_safety#Damage_mechanisms), and depending on the material it could filter some wavelengths but let other wavelengths pass. Testing just with visible light is not enough.

That's not really something I could test readily at home. Additionally, the light bulb test is what the local news was saying is a good quick and dirty test to check for counterfeits. I obviously can't certify them. https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/iso-certification

E1: I'll probably end up getting new ones; I guess you're right.

E2: Because everyone cares about my saga, of course, the seller appears to have sold blatantly fraudulent ones as well. Apparently lowes has certified ones, so I'm going to pop in there tomorrow.

E3: in classic "pay attention to me" style, but also in the hopes of helping someone else out: https://www.eclipseglasses.com/pages/safety my glasses look like the counterfeit version listed on the mfg website.

I hope this is a wake up call for Amazon and they start cleaning up and cutting back the third party sellers.

It's to the point where I don't bother checking Amazon for a lot of things because I know it will be too hard to find a legit seller.

Better now than the 22nd. Bravo Amazon.

The walmart i know still has them for $1.

Bravo? Amazon sells counterfeit shit all over. They're panicking and trying to avoid a tiny bit of the inevitable damage. I bet they'll settle quickly versus risk the full extent of their malicious behaviour become public knowledge.

Well... Bravo in the sense that by recalling they admit they have counterfeit problem.

It is not too late ever for a company to admit they made a mistake. Look at the catholic church

I don’t think you’re helping your case there with that comparison.

Yeah. Do over. I was trying to think of an organization that didnt admit to a problem until confronted and obvious.

My bad

Unfortunately many do not recognize the Catholic Church as just another profit seeking company.

And as we all know, Walmart is a paragon of valuing quality over cost

>"Safety is among our highest priorities...

That's an odd way for Amazon to put it. Presumably not injuring your customers is priority number one in most businesses?

So how long can I safely look at the eclipse WITHOUT glasses.

Can I take like 5 second glances?

Is there some minimum rest period between them?

(I ordered glasses but will assume they are fake).

If you love your eyes, the answer is zero.

If you look at the eclipse at all without glasses, you will cause permanent eye damage. It's worse than looking directly at a sun NOT during an eclipse.

Don't do what you suggest. Seriously.

OK.. I just assumed it was the same at staring at the sun... except without the blinding light that normally forces you to look away due to pain.

On further research looks like something about your eye having a specific point to focus on which gets damaged immediately.

Thanks.

Use an old floppy disk to see the eclipse. I'm serious

It seems opaque, but it is transparent enough to see the sun

And it's probably every bit as safe as those fake glasses. Don't do this!

That is horrific and likely dangerous "advice".

The mylar composite used in floppy disks seems opaque... to visible light. 54% of the Sun's energy output is in other wavelengths. There is no certification that a floppy disk cookie will block those. Plus it has a big hole in the middle, danger of inadvertent viewing.

This is like the argument I have with other photographers every eclipse when they try to use their 'super-dark' neutral-density filters. Sure they block ten stops of light, but the IR and UV just sails on through.

Unless it's designed and certifed as a Solar viewing material just don't even contemplate it. You're better watching the eclipse on TV in that case.

Does eye lens focus UV an IR? Or is the amount that goes through the hole of the size of iris enough to do the damage unfocused?

> Unless it's designed and certifed as a Solar viewing material just don't even contemplate it.

People have been using dark pieces of photographic film to see eclipses since ever. I wonder if there has been studies on its UV transmissibility

Thought you're right about the super-dark film and I don't think those are dark enough even on the visible range

Though I do agree if you want to stare at it directly your best choice is to get solar viewing glasses (preferably not a fake one)

This page has some tests: astronexus.com/gatfaq/solar-filters besides poor optical quality floppy disks allow wavelenghts > 800nm to pass (this is IR range)

A good suggestion that seems easy to obtain: welder's glass

> People have been using dark pieces of photographic film to see eclipses since ever.

Fully exposed and developed black and white film is safe, color negative film, however, is totally unsafe, regardless of how dark it might seem. The film has to contain real silver particles, not color dyes.

Beware of monochromatic film that looks black and white but it’s really a color negative film developed using C41 process. It has to be real black and white film.

http://www.mreclipse.com/Totality2/TotalityCh11.html#Film

https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/safety.html

I may be "old school" but the "traditional" way is to use a welding mask glass, something you can usually buy "around the corner" for a very little amount of money and I see that NASA also advises about it:

https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/safety.html

>One of the most widely available filters for safe solar viewing is a number 14 welder's glass, available through welding supply outlets.

And both colour fim and non-silver B&W film are listed by them among the unsafe:

>Unsafe filters include color film, some non-silver black and white film, medical x-ray films with images on them, smoked glass, photographic neutral density filters and polarizing filters.

Another longer article on that same site (by a different author) actually mentions the grandparent's suggested method of looking through a floppy disk medium:

https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/safety2.html

> Many experienced solar observers use one or two layers of black-and-white film that has been fully exposed to light and developed to maximum density. The metallic silver contained in the film emulsion is the protective filter. Some of the newer black and white films use dyes instead of silver and these are unsafe. Black-and-white negatives with images on it (e.g., medical x-rays) are also not suitable. More recently, solar observers have used floppy disks and compact disks (both CDs and CD-ROMs) as protective filters by covering the central openings and looking through the disk media. However, the optical quality of the solar image formed by a floppy disk or CD is relatively poor compared to mylar or welder's glass. Some CDs are made with very thin aluminum coatings which are not safe - if you can see through the CD in normal room lighting, don't use it!! No filter should be used with an optical device (e.g. binoculars, telescope, camera) unless it has been specifically designed for that purpose and is mounted at the front end (i.e., end towards the Sun). Some sources of solar filters are listed in the following section.

> Unsafe filters include all color film, black-and-white film that contains no silver, photographic negatives with images on them (x-rays and snapshots), smoked glass, sunglasses (single or multiple pairs), photographic neutral density filters and polarizing filters.

This second NASA author seems to believe that floppy disk media (with the hole covered) may actually be safe for eclipse viewing, just not very effective.

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