5 ms·

> A good chunk of people require glasses that need to be custom-made. Zenni makes their glasses to order; what do you mean?

by jefftk 4y ago

frosted-flakes 4y ago
Even with Zenni my eyeglasses cost over $100. At Costco they cost $300, and at most other places they cost $600. I used to always go with Costco, but last year I tried Zenni. The frames are definitely flimsier than any others I've had, which I've heard is generally the case for their wire-frame options—I'm sure their heavy plastic frames are more sturdy, but that's not my style. But the lenses seem as good as usual. Except they polished the edges of the lens instead of leaving them frosted, which creates distracting reflections under certain light (with an Rx of around -9/-10 my lenses are 7-8 mm thick). Despite all that I'll probably stick with Zenni in future. I wash my glasses with a drop of palmolive dish soap and warm water, then blow any water drops off the lenses. An oelophilic coating (available with Zenni) makes this easy, because the water beads up and almost rolls off.
- sgt 4y ago
  7-8mm thick?! That's insane. I am pretty sure you can get thinner lenses by using a different index. It will be more expensive but definitely worth it. My Rx is -8.5 and my lenses are reasonably thin.
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    I can definitely get thinner lenses using a higher-index material, but I selected this lens material specifically because it has a higher Abbe number and thus has less chromatic aberrations. The thickness doesn't bother me, but chromatic aberrations do, a lot. I cannot tolerate the excessive colour fringing high-index lenses have, and while contact lenses don't have this problem I dislike those even more. I have lenses with an optical index of 1.61, which have an Abbe number of 41. In comparison, basic polycarbonate has Abbe 30 (horrible), high-index 1.67 has Abbe 32, and high-index 1.74 has Abbe 33. The best is CR-39 (index 1.5) with Abbe 59, but that will result in an absurdly thick lens, and I'm not sure it's even available in such a strong prescription.
    - sgt 4y ago
      The chromatic aberrations are there but I think you just need to get used to them. Alternative is heavy glasses.
      - sgt 4y ago
        Also - the only aberration I notice is with blue light e.g a bright LED. It goes away if you look directly at it. How is your experience?
      - frosted-flakes 4y ago
        That's not true. My glasses are super light and the thickness is not a concern whatsoever. I can shake my head back and forth with my head down and they don't move at all. And for the past decade since my Rx got particularly bad I have always found the aberrations annoying, so no, I won't "just get used to them". I can't stand chromatic aberrations because they make everything outside of the centre of the lens blurry. This worsens my tendency for one eye or the other to wander if I'm trying to focus on something just at the edge of reading distance (road signs or restaurant menus, for example) and makes driving at night in the rain difficult. My current glasses have an acceptable amount of abberations, but my previous set was horrible. I really should be wearing contacts and I've tried them several times, but I generally find them very uncomfortable and I've always hated how they take away my perfect close-up vision.
        Groxx 4y ago
        Yeah, I've stepped down from the highest index I've used due to the aberrations. Material and grinding techniques have improved since then in general, but it was quite distracting - shift my head a degree or two and bam, rainbow, and further to the edges of the lens it'd be 3+ distinct colored images of every light source. It was kinda neat to be a walking spectroscope, and see what different light sources produced. But the novelty wears off fast when it starts blurring and coloring text on the outer edges of computer monitors. I'm plenty happy paying another $100-200 every few years for lenses that don't do that.
  - mkmk 4y ago
    At your strong prescription, are there any styles of frames or lenses that you've found reduce facial displacement?
    - sgt 4y ago
      Smaller is better, although I've found a medium sized Ray-Ban carbon frame that looks modern and is also extremely light. Higher index making the lens thinner also reduces displacement. Most people don't notice I have a strong prescription.
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  > Except they polished the edges of the lens instead of leaving them frosted, which creates distracting reflections under certain light Could you apply some kind of light paint to the edges? Maybe nail polish?
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    I could remove the lenses and carefully sand the edges slightly with fine sandpaper to create a frosted effect, but I haven't tried it yet.
nunez 4y ago
if you get the most basic lenses, the glasses are super cheap (since it costs almost nothing to make frames). if you start adding features (like thinner lenses, or coatings), the price adds up quickly. i usually spent $60-$120 per pair of glasses on Zenni.
- conductr 4y ago
  Lenses are much cheaper to manufacture than most people realize. Most of the coatings and upgrades are 95%+ profit with very little cost. An interesting thing I learned in that industry, the uncut "puck" of plastic/material is usually cut to your prescription via an CNC style machine. The cut instructions are essentially a pre-built CAD file based on your prescription/measurements. A significant cost of the process is paying "click fees" which are essentially IP to use that CAD file or a usages based tier on the CNC machine (however you want to look at it). I think, for the company I was working with at least, it was tied to the CAD file though. I recall some discussion of us changing vendors as current vendor's CAD files were failing QC checks at an unacceptable level. If I remember correctly, it was about $5 of a $20 finished good (averages for a pair of lenses). Every coating imaginable would only add $3 at most to cost of goods. Memories from ~3 years ago. IP/Brands drives a lot in this industry and is how Zenni is able to cut costs. A company like Rayban will partner with a lense manufacturer to put a logo on the lense and then charge $300 for the lenses. It's the exact lense the manufacturer would normally sell for $25 but now it has a Rayban logo on it. (I actually had these and ended up scratching off the Rayban logo because it was constantly visible in my periphery).
  - nunez 4y ago
    That sounds about right. I remember having gone to an optometrists office some time back and they were able to cut lenses right there and have glasses ready in an hour. I was amazed and couldn't understand why everyone couldn't do this. Sunglasses are the worst. They cost basically nothing to make but the profit margin is Inf% b/c of branding. A $20 (at most) pair of non-name sunglasses instantly becomes a $700 pair of glasses once you slap a few PRADA insignias around it. I used to get my sunglasses from Goodr; they charged $25 for no-slip polarized sunglasses, which were very good. After one of the pairs broke, I decided to get two pairs of Ray-Ban Wayfarers, one for $75, and the other for $200. I knew I was getting fleeced, but I finally wanted a pair of "cool" shades and could finally get them without breaking the bank. :D
lonelyasacloud 4y ago
As someone with fairly pronouced Astigmatism in the expensive glasses camp, I'd say: 1) The glasses have to accurately hold my the lens at a specific location and orientation relative to my eyes in order that they actually work. Off by a little bit and it's world of splitting headaches and crazy distortion Achieving that positioning, while dealing with my wonky ears, size of head, eye locations etc - requires knowledge beyond current web systems before ordering and - unless completely bespoke fabrication of frames as well - some form of final fitting post delivery. - The prescription is sufficiently rare that the lens are not mass produced and instead have to be custom ground and cut to fit the frames before the glasses can be assembled.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  Have you considered maybe trying audiobooks instead? ))
- jefftk 4y ago
  To your first point: that makes sense! To your second point: Zenni and competitors do custom grind their orders.

> A good chunk of people require glasses that need to be custom-made. Zenni makes their glasses to order; what do you mean?

by jefftk 4y ago

> A good chunk of people require glasses that need to be custom-made. Zenni makes their glasses to order; what do you mean?

frosted-flakes 4y ago

Even with Zenni my eyeglasses cost over $100. At Costco they cost $300, and at most other places they cost $600. I used to always go with Costco, but last year I tried Zenni. The frames are definitely flimsier than any others I've had, which I've heard is generally the case for their wire-frame options—I'm sure their heavy plastic frames are more sturdy, but that's not my style. But the lenses seem as good as usual. Except they polished the edges of the lens instead of leaving them frosted, which creates distracting reflections under certain light (with an Rx of around -9/-10 my lenses are 7-8 mm thick). Despite all that I'll probably stick with Zenni in future. I wash my glasses with a drop of palmolive dish soap and warm water, then blow any water drops off the lenses. An oelophilic coating (available with Zenni) makes this easy, because the water beads up and almost rolls off.

sgt 4y ago
7-8mm thick?! That's insane. I am pretty sure you can get thinner lenses by using a different index. It will be more expensive but definitely worth it. My Rx is -8.5 and my lenses are reasonably thin.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  I can definitely get thinner lenses using a higher-index material, but I selected this lens material specifically because it has a higher Abbe number and thus has less chromatic aberrations. The thickness doesn't bother me, but chromatic aberrations do, a lot. I cannot tolerate the excessive colour fringing high-index lenses have, and while contact lenses don't have this problem I dislike those even more. I have lenses with an optical index of 1.61, which have an Abbe number of 41. In comparison, basic polycarbonate has Abbe 30 (horrible), high-index 1.67 has Abbe 32, and high-index 1.74 has Abbe 33. The best is CR-39 (index 1.5) with Abbe 59, but that will result in an absurdly thick lens, and I'm not sure it's even available in such a strong prescription.
  - sgt 4y ago
    The chromatic aberrations are there but I think you just need to get used to them. Alternative is heavy glasses.
    - sgt 4y ago
      Also - the only aberration I notice is with blue light e.g a bright LED. It goes away if you look directly at it. How is your experience?
    - frosted-flakes 4y ago
      That's not true. My glasses are super light and the thickness is not a concern whatsoever. I can shake my head back and forth with my head down and they don't move at all. And for the past decade since my Rx got particularly bad I have always found the aberrations annoying, so no, I won't "just get used to them". I can't stand chromatic aberrations because they make everything outside of the centre of the lens blurry. This worsens my tendency for one eye or the other to wander if I'm trying to focus on something just at the edge of reading distance (road signs or restaurant menus, for example) and makes driving at night in the rain difficult. My current glasses have an acceptable amount of abberations, but my previous set was horrible. I really should be wearing contacts and I've tried them several times, but I generally find them very uncomfortable and I've always hated how they take away my perfect close-up vision.
      - Groxx 4y ago
        Yeah, I've stepped down from the highest index I've used due to the aberrations. Material and grinding techniques have improved since then in general, but it was quite distracting - shift my head a degree or two and bam, rainbow, and further to the edges of the lens it'd be 3+ distinct colored images of every light source. It was kinda neat to be a walking spectroscope, and see what different light sources produced. But the novelty wears off fast when it starts blurring and coloring text on the outer edges of computer monitors. I'm plenty happy paying another $100-200 every few years for lenses that don't do that.
- mkmk 4y ago
  At your strong prescription, are there any styles of frames or lenses that you've found reduce facial displacement?
  - sgt 4y ago
    Smaller is better, although I've found a medium sized Ray-Ban carbon frame that looks modern and is also extremely light. Higher index making the lens thinner also reduces displacement. Most people don't notice I have a strong prescription.
gwbas1c 4y ago
> Except they polished the edges of the lens instead of leaving them frosted, which creates distracting reflections under certain light Could you apply some kind of light paint to the edges? Maybe nail polish?
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  I could remove the lenses and carefully sand the edges slightly with fine sandpaper to create a frosted effect, but I haven't tried it yet.

nunez 4y ago

if you get the most basic lenses, the glasses are super cheap (since it costs almost nothing to make frames). if you start adding features (like thinner lenses, or coatings), the price adds up quickly. i usually spent $60-$120 per pair of glasses on Zenni.

conductr 4y ago
Lenses are much cheaper to manufacture than most people realize. Most of the coatings and upgrades are 95%+ profit with very little cost. An interesting thing I learned in that industry, the uncut "puck" of plastic/material is usually cut to your prescription via an CNC style machine. The cut instructions are essentially a pre-built CAD file based on your prescription/measurements. A significant cost of the process is paying "click fees" which are essentially IP to use that CAD file or a usages based tier on the CNC machine (however you want to look at it). I think, for the company I was working with at least, it was tied to the CAD file though. I recall some discussion of us changing vendors as current vendor's CAD files were failing QC checks at an unacceptable level. If I remember correctly, it was about $5 of a $20 finished good (averages for a pair of lenses). Every coating imaginable would only add $3 at most to cost of goods. Memories from ~3 years ago. IP/Brands drives a lot in this industry and is how Zenni is able to cut costs. A company like Rayban will partner with a lense manufacturer to put a logo on the lense and then charge $300 for the lenses. It's the exact lense the manufacturer would normally sell for $25 but now it has a Rayban logo on it. (I actually had these and ended up scratching off the Rayban logo because it was constantly visible in my periphery).
- nunez 4y ago
  That sounds about right. I remember having gone to an optometrists office some time back and they were able to cut lenses right there and have glasses ready in an hour. I was amazed and couldn't understand why everyone couldn't do this. Sunglasses are the worst. They cost basically nothing to make but the profit margin is Inf% b/c of branding. A $20 (at most) pair of non-name sunglasses instantly becomes a $700 pair of glasses once you slap a few PRADA insignias around it. I used to get my sunglasses from Goodr; they charged $25 for no-slip polarized sunglasses, which were very good. After one of the pairs broke, I decided to get two pairs of Ray-Ban Wayfarers, one for $75, and the other for $200. I knew I was getting fleeced, but I finally wanted a pair of "cool" shades and could finally get them without breaking the bank. :D

lonelyasacloud 4y ago

As someone with fairly pronouced Astigmatism in the expensive glasses camp, I'd say: 1) The glasses have to accurately hold my the lens at a specific location and orientation relative to my eyes in order that they actually work. Off by a little bit and it's world of splitting headaches and crazy distortion Achieving that positioning, while dealing with my wonky ears, size of head, eye locations etc - requires knowledge beyond current web systems before ordering and - unless completely bespoke fabrication of frames as well - some form of final fitting post delivery. - The prescription is sufficiently rare that the lens are not mass produced and instead have to be custom ground and cut to fit the frames before the glasses can be assembled.

dotancohen 4y ago
Have you considered maybe trying audiobooks instead? ))
jefftk 4y ago
To your first point: that makes sense! To your second point: Zenni and competitors do custom grind their orders.