Ordering glasses online used to be something you did as a last resort, a way to pick up a budget pair or just to try something new without breaking the bank. But with more and more fashion-forward brands online than ever, venerable brick-and-mortar opticians launching web shopping and the industry as a whole embracing the idea, it&#;s easier than ever to get that new look or get that new prescription with a few clicks.
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We tried over a dozen of the leading online eyeglass retailers, and after months of shopping, measuring, ordering and wearing the results for work, workouts and everyday, we&#;ve found the best online eyeglass retailers for you, whether you&#;re looking to save money, find something specific you can&#;t get close to home or just want access to the widest range of styles.
Eyebuydirect
The best place to buy prescription glasses online overall
Eyebuydirect
A huge selection of name and house brands and great try-on tools make it easy to find what you want, and the retailer made us a great pair of glasses. A short return period is the only real downside.
From $6 at Eyebuydirect
Zenni
The best online eyeglasses on a budget
Zenni
With the lowest prices on average and an ever-expanding catalog of frames and lenses, Zenni&#;s the least expensive way to get great glasses online. You&#;re locked into store credit after 14 days if you don&#;t like your glasses, but there&#;s a lot to choose from even so.
From $7 at Zenni
Roka
The best place to buy performance glasses and workout sunglasses
Roka
It&#;s hard to find great performance frames even at most optical shops, and Roka&#;s stylish, lightweight, nonslip glasses are great for anybody active.
$215
From $130 at Roka
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
With a mix of affordable house brands and good deals on a range of premium brands, Eyebuydirect offers flexible, complete search tools and a shopping process that is smooth and easy to navigate, with superior VR/AR try-on tools. If you&#;re looking for value comparable to Zenni&#;s but want the option of browsing familiar names, it&#;s hard to beat Eyebuydirect.
Eyebuydirect&#;s collection is huge, which means you&#;ll find both a wide range and a lot of variations on similar themes. The search tools let you filter effectively by enough criteria that you can narrow things down quickly.
We really liked the glasses we got from Eyebuydirect, especially given the inexpensive pricing. The fully spec&#;d browline pair we ordered compared very favorably to name-brand versions of the same concept from Ray-Ban and others, with solid build, very clear optics and a wide field of vision in the premium progressive prescription we ordered, and the fit was in order with what we&#;d expected from the online fit tools. A pair of basic Wayfarer-style frames we ordered as readers similarly met our expectations, with quality acetate construction and similarly good optical quality to the pricier pair.
Basic single-vision prescriptions are very inexpensive (well under $100), while pricing for a fully loaded pair, before discounts, runs about $400 for house brands ($100 more than Zenni) and in the $500 to $600 range for branded options like Ray-Ban. This is still very affordable compared to many brick-and-mortar opticians and high-end retailers, where you&#;d spend in the neighborhood of $1,000 for a similarly spec&#;d pair but not far off major discount retailers like Costco.
Eyebuydirect&#;s try-on tools are the most complete and easy to use of all of the eyeglass retailers we tested. A full-featured viewer works with your live webcam, an uploaded still image or a recorded video, and lets you enter your PD measurement and even adjust the fit of the virtual frames on your nose, which we didn&#;t encounter anywhere else &#; it really makes the fitting experience better and gave us the best sense of how the frames might look when worn.
Like most low-cost online retailers, Eyebuydirect doesn&#;t directly accept insurance, but the site provides a simple way of applying for reimbursement from a wide range of vision insurance plans, potentially saving you money even over other lower-cost online retailers, depending on your plan&#;s out-of-network coverage.
Two-day delivery (one day faster than even Zenni&#;s express service) is available for a select range of frames, with single-vision prescriptions &#; it&#;s about the cheapest way to get a pair of glasses in a hurry. With regular shipping, we got our glasses in nine business days.
Interestingly, and perhaps understandably given the need to keep down costs, you don&#;t get a case with your Eyebuydirect glasses &#; just a cardboard box. If you&#;ve bought glasses in the past this is probably welcome (since there&#;s definitely a drawer full of excess cases somewhere in your house), but it can be a little inconvenient if you&#;re new to eyewear.
You have only 14 days to return your glasses if you don&#;t like them, which is one of the shortest return periods of any online glasses retailer we looked at. That said, you do get a full refund &#; unlike Zenni, where you get a 30-day window but only store credit &#; so if you don&#;t like their styles, you can easily recoup your investment and shop elsewhere.
While overall Eyebuydirect&#;s frames are of good quality and comparable to everything else in the under-$300 price range that we saw, some of the more basic plastic frames we checked out did feel a bit cheap in comparison with Zenni&#;s similarly priced frames. We don&#;t expect they&#;d fail in use or anything, but if you want a luxury feel you might not want to select the least expensive frames on offer here &#; Zenni has a slight edge here at the low end.
One flaw in Eyebuydirect&#;s ordering system &#; which most people might not find an issue, admittedly &#; is that it doesn&#;t flag multifocal prescriptions that are out of spec for a given frame until you&#;ve made your way through most of the ordering process (and the alert doesn&#;t give enough clear advice on what to do or what&#;s wrong). We&#;d prefer to see this alert earlier in the process.
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Zenni&#;s pricing has always been hard to beat, but as the company has expanded its range of styles and options, it&#;d be hard to recommend that online glasses shoppers looking to save money go anywhere else. Zenni also has the best shopping tools and prescription management of any of the online glasses retailers we looked at, and its prescription entry tool was the most flexible of the bunch, even letting you manage multiple orders for different members of a family. If Zenni&#;s styles work for you, you really can&#;t lose.
Zenni has been a consistently popular choice because it sells a full-featured pair of glasses for significantly less on average than its competitors. It&#;s possible to get a pair with all the fixings &#; premium, high-index progressive lenses, with the latest Transitions XtraActives photochromic treatment and a full suite of protective coatings &#; for under $300, even before coupons or discounts. Plus, the company has made the shopping and ordering process among the simplest and most straightforward of all the retailers we looked at for this review.
The company&#;s offerings have expanded over time, and while styles tend toward bright, fun colors and fashion-forward looks, you can get anything from classic wire rims to wraparound nylon activewear models at this point. Everything is well made, with quality fittings like spring hinges employed across the line. That said, Zenni&#;s glasses don&#;t have the fine-tuned, substantial feel you&#;d get from a luxury frame &#; Zenni&#;s acetate finishing is not always up to the level of a Moscot or Salt frame, for instance &#; but at the price is a whole lot of bang for the buck. The pairs we received were all solidly built, with no creaking or looseness, and adjustments were easy to make where needed. Nothing feels cheap here.
If you already know what you like (or just prefer precision), you can search the company&#;s catalog by almost any parameter you can think of, from color to any frame or lens dimension, by specific number or range. It&#;s just better than any other site we tried (though Eyebuydirect gets pretty close). Zenni&#;s virtual try-on tool lets you see every frame on a search result page already displayed on your face, a helpful guide for comparison shopping.
The prescription data entry tool is simple and straightforward (it was surprisingly obscure on several competitor sites), and we found it easy to place orders for multiple prescriptions for different people within the same order, which was not the case for the great majority of eyeglass retailers we checked out. There&#;s also great account-based record-keeping, which regular customers will appreciate, making it easy to revisit past orders, reorder and keep prescriptions organized. On tools and pricing, Zenni sits comfortably at the top of the heap.
Zenni offers a limited selection of frames with single-vision prescriptions with a &#;Fast Frame&#; three-day delivery guarantee. But even outside of the models covered by the two-day offer, shipping is very fast. We received one of our orders, a pair of progressive, photochromic curved exercise glasses &#; a tall order for most manufacturers &#; in seven business days, and the others within two weeks.
While Zenni will make almost anything, there are limits &#; for instance, it&#;s optically challenging to make progressive prescriptions in a highly curved lens, and to avoid distortion most manufactures don&#;t make stronger prescriptions (+/- 4.00 or above) in that format.
Luckily for Zenni shoppers, rather than simply kicking you back to the beginning of your order without clear explanation (as we found with GlassesUSA), the Zenni site gives you an informative alert when you&#;ve tried to order something that&#;s gone over the line, making it easy to figure out what to do.
Zenni&#;s main downside is that though you can receive a full refund if you return your glasses within 14 days of delivery, its 30-day return policy is less generous, with customers receiving store credit toward another pair of Zenni frames. If you find after trying them on that you don&#;t like the overall look or feel of Zenni&#;s frames or lenses and you wait longer than two weeks, you&#;re out of luck. That said, the typically low prices offset the potential loss (and the range of styles is broad enough you&#;ll likely be fine with one of the looks, at least as a spare pair), but it&#;s worth keeping in mind.
There&#;s no in-home sample try-on available, either as part of shopping or fitting &#; that&#;s in keeping with most of the lower-priced competition, but the company would be very hard to quibble with at all if they offered such a thing.
Annoyingly, Zenni doesn&#;t put measurements on their frames. While it&#;s easy enough to look these up in your account on the Zenni site, it&#;s nice to have the numbers handy if you ever want to look elsewhere in the future. Like the return policy, it seems calculated to keep you in the Zenni ecosystem, which is understandable from the company&#;s perspective but is not particularly consumer-friendly.
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Roka has carved out an interesting niche. It offers a small number of fashionable styles, but all with an activewear focus. With lightweight nylon frames, replaceable (and adjustable) nonslip nose pads and arm contact points used in all of the frames the company sells, these glasses are always ready for action. The range of styles is much more limited than most of the online eyeglass brands, but the focused approach is much like the one Apple&#;s taken with the Apple Watch Ultra: These glasses are meant to be high-end fitness devices that you can wear all the time.
We&#;ve been running and cycling and doing outdoor chores for several months using a pair of Roka&#;s Hamilton frames, and we&#;ve found them as comfortable and nonslip as claimed, comparing very favorably with mainstream performance models from Oakely, Tifosi and other specialist brands. They&#;re also stylish and have great optical clarity, as good as anything we saw from any of the makers we tested.
The replaceable &#;Geko&#; nose pads (you get three sizes in the box, much like you might with silicone ear tips for earbuds) really make a difference in getting a secure nonslip fit even when you&#;re sweaty &#; they really stay put, even when running or cycling on a hot, humid day, a challenge for every other frame we tried. The three sets of nose pads made it easy to get a good fit, and there&#;s a good few millimeters of variation available.
Roka doesn&#;t offer a huge variety of styles &#; you mostly get a bunch of variations on the slightly oversized chunky look, though in lightweight materials and with a gentle curve for better performance, along with some vintage-style looks and a few mixed material and browline styles. It&#;s utilitarian, but uniformly good-looking and should suit a wide variety of faces.
Roka has a 30-day return policy, though it deducts a $20 restocking fee (waived if you&#;re returning because the company didn&#;t get your prescription right). This isn&#;t that significant a cost given the relative expense of the glasses themselves, so we consider it a reasonably good policy in the context of the brands we reviewed for this piece.
If you don&#;t have a current prescription, Roka partners with the online vision test provider Visibly to offer a virtual vision test. There&#;s a $25 fee for the service. We didn&#;t assess this for purposes of this piece (and may return as more of these services emerge), but the option is there and integrated with the process.
Roka is relatively expensive compared to many of the other brands we checked out, with a fully decked-out pair of photochromic progressives costing around $750. While this is probably offset for most potential buyers by the fact it&#;s actually pretty hard to find good performance eyewear even at most brick-and-mortars, especially if you don&#;t like the sci-fi look of Oakely&#;s offerings, keep in mind that you won&#;t save a ton of money over the in-store experience.
As of this writing it appears that Roka has discontinued its in-home try-out option, which we appreciated during the shopping process.
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
GlassesUSA, a sizable online retailer that&#;s part of Optimax, one of the big international eyewear companies, offers a huge selection. With a ton of familiar name brands along with house brands such as Muse, Ottoto and Revel, there&#;s likely to be something you&#;ll like here, whether you&#;re looking for oversized aviators or chunky acetate, retro or futuristic.
GlassesUSA has a group of helpful shopping tools that begin with a style quiz that aims to point you in the right direction based on some questions about what you&#;re currently wearing, along with your stylistic and brand preferences. It got us in the ballpark pretty effectively, but you can fine-tune to be as general or specific as you like.
From there you can use a very well-implemented virtual try-on service that lets you upload an image (which then works across the site on search result and detail pages), and GlassesUSA also provides interesting tools like a prescription scanner that lets you scan your existing glasses (assuming they are an up-to-date prescription) if you don&#;t have a copy handy. The GlassesUSA virtual try-on tool asks you to place crosshairs on your pupils to take a virtual PD measurement, then to enter your actual PD if known &#; this made for about the most accurate sizing of any of the virtual try-on tools we tested, in line with Eyebuydirect&#;s great tool.
Pricing is on the low end &#; so long as you take advantage of the company&#;s frequent sales and discount codes. If you sign up for an account you&#;ll get daily coupon offers &#; a blessing and a curse if you like to save money but don&#;t like marketing emails. The discount codes can save you a lot of money; we regularly saw 40% off or buy-one-get-one-free offers that amounted to very significant savings. If you&#;re interested in any of GlassesUSA&#;s frames, you&#;ll want to sign up for an account and keep an eye on the site&#;s coupons and promotions page.
As is typical of the sites in this review, you&#;ll get the best deal on simple single-vision prescriptions &#; progressives, high-index lenses, tints and coatings can add up, though you&#;ll generally save compared to brick-and-mortar opticians.
We received our pairs in two weeks, about on average for the retailers we tested. We really liked the glasses we got from GlassesUSA (we stuck to the Muse house brand). Fit and finish were excellent overall (we found one small tooling mark on the edge of a frame piece, but it was in an area on the rear face of the frame that was invisible and couldn&#;t be felt. Prescriptions were cut accurately and sizing was exactly in line with the virtual try-on.
While virtual try-on tools are everywhere on the GlassesUSA site, the images are presented in a fairly low resolution, and while it&#;s easy to get a sense of proper sizing it&#;s tough to make a call on colors or patterns. (This was really the case for most of the sites we reviewed, so it isn&#;t necessarily a strike against GlassesUSA.) We found we had to spend some time comparing sample 360-degree photos of models rather than just judging solely by our own uploaded photos in order to make final decisions.
If you sign up for an account, GlassesUSA is very persistent about getting your business. At one point after browsing while logged in, a representative called us on the to offer a coupon &#; it was a good offer, but some shoppers may find such policies overly aggressive.
With great virtual tools and useful search, GlassesUSA has made it very easy to comparison shop its huge selection, and it&#;s easy to find a great pair of glasses whether you&#;re interested in house brands or premium names. Abundant discount codes keep the prices low, but you&#;ll get a lot of them.
At-home try-ons and great styles: Warby Parker
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
The brand most people think of when they think of buying glasses online, Warby Parker is an independent online retailer (with an expanding brick-and-mortar presence) that offers a range of house-branded stylish frames. The overall look tends toward retro styles &#; if you&#;re into chunky acetate, there&#;s a lot to choose from.
Warby Parker built its reputation on its home try-on program: Before the practice was widely adopted the company made it easy to try things on in person even if you don&#;t live near a Warby Parker location. Once you&#;re found some frames you&#;re interested in (you can follow the site&#;s advice about finding the best width for your face to begin narrowing things down) you put together a list of up to five frames, place a no-cost order, and the company will send out a home try-on kit of frames with clear lenses for you to check out (you can repeat the process once you return them if nothing ends up working out).
The virtual try-on tool in the Warby Parker app (this one is much better than the tool available on the desktop site, which is fairly limited) gave us a good idea of what might work for us, so we requested a home try-on kit of five likely candidates aiming for a range of sizes that would give us an idea of the overall dimensions of Warby Parker stuff, then picked one and went ahead and placed an order. Warby Parker doesn&#;t do any photo-based fitting based on the home-try on; the samples are strictly intended to give you a better idea of what fits and how it&#;ll look.
Warby Parker is an in-network provider for many insurance plans and provides links to apply for out-of-network reimbursement for many others. The company estimates you can save an average of $100 on a pair of glasses each year by using insurance, bringing its average prices down significantly, especially for single-vision prescriptions.
Like most of the retailers we checked out, pricing ranges from inexpensive (especially for basic single vision) to middle of the pack if you need anything more elaborate. You&#;ll spend less with Warby Parker than you would on brand name at many independent brick-and-mortar shops, though it isn&#;t bargain-basement either. A complete pair of glasses with a single-vision prescription with standard coatings comes in around $100. If you order a high-index progressive prescription with the full suite of coatings and a photochromic lens you&#;ll probably come in a bit over $400.
We quite liked the retro-styled Kimball frames we ended up ordering, though the acetate had a couple of rough edges that needed a little emery cloth and polishing (we could also have visited a Warby Parker location for this &#; always an option if you are near one &#; but chose to take care of it at home since we had tools on hand).
Warby Parker&#;s design approach is minimal to a fault, and the site&#;s clean look does a nice job setting off the frames visually and is in keeping with the overall aesthetic, but makes some important information a little more obscure than we&#;d like.
Also, the shopping approach is very much mobile-first: the desktop browser version of the site&#;s virtual try-on tools can give you a general idea of how a frame might look, but they are much less developed than those within the Warby Parker mobile app (which does a pretty good job). We&#;d love to see these features brought more in line (the company has plans to do this in the coming year), and fuller information for each frame supplied in both the browser and mobile versions of the shop.
Standard measurements &#; lens width, bridge and arm length &#; for each frame are given, but where some competitors have begun providing lens height (which isn&#;t part of the standard sizing given for most frames but is useful to figure out how much coverage a pair will provide for progressives or sunglasses) you&#;ll just have to go ahead and order the home try-on kit or visit a Warby Parker retail store to confirm what you like will work for you &#; that&#;s fine, but it makes it harder to rule frames in or out in the first round of a shopping venture. While searching the site you can filter frames by width (there are five, from extra narrow to extra wide), you can&#;t search the collection by size in millimeters (which is useful if you know what you like, you&#;re not looking to make a switch and feel confident that you like your current glasses or know exactly what you like); we appreciated this feature in our top picks&#; shops.
As the pioneering independent direct-to-consumer online glasses brand, Warby Parker continues to maintain an interesting curated selection of stylish frames, at fair prices relative to bigger chains. Shopping tools are minimal, though the impact is offset a bit by its very useful home try-on kit and the option of visiting a store for fittings if you like.
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
LensDirect is an independent retailer best known as an online contact lens retailer (the company has been in that business for decades), but it has moved into glasses as well, offering a small, well-curated lineup of house-branded frames tending toward chunky, retro styles.
Both pairs of glasses we got from LensDirect &#; a retro-styled chunky acetate frame and a Wayfarer-like sunglass frame &#; were of very high quality throughout (though the first pair arrived damaged and needed replacement &#; more on that below). Lenses were accurately cut, the finish of the frame was excellent and fit corresponded reasonably well with what we expected from given sizing and virtual try-on tools.
Pricing is middle of the range for online shops; a basic pair with single-vision lenses, no tints and standard coatings starts at $74; progressives with high-index photochromic lenses will end up in the $400 to $500 range depending on style and specifics &#; at least before discounts. As with many of the shops we looked at, you&#;ll want to look out for special offers, sales and coupon codes &#; the savings can be pretty significant, knocking $100 or more off the final cost.
LensDirect also offers a lens replacement service; the company will take a frame you already own (with some limitations) and replace the lenses (costs range from $59 on up to just over $300, depending on prescription type, tints and coatings), and while we didn&#;t test this or similar services (such as Lensabl), they&#;re certainly an alternative if you own expensive frames you already like that aren&#;t overly worn.
Since we received a damaged frame, we did need to deal with LensDirect&#;s customer support, and we were impressed with its handling of the situation. Every representative we interacted with was very responsive and helpful.
Only a limited selection of LensDirect&#;s frames allow for virtual try-on. While we found plenty of styles to our taste within this group, you may well find that the glasses that interest you aren&#;t available for a look. That said, measurements tracked well with what we expected given our experience of other glasses frames, so if you know exactly what you&#;re looking for you should be able to try similar frames in the tool to triangulate on what you want.
We didn&#;t love LensDirect&#;s prescription upload system &#; you upload a PDF or photo of your prescription, and once you&#;ve placed the order an optician contacts you by to confirm. There&#;s not a good way to look back at your order to confirm that the order&#;s gone through with the data you intended, however. (Zenni and Eyebuydirect, for example, make all of the information you&#;ve entered available at every point in the process.)
This led us to making an error as we initially tried to place an order for two separate pairs of glasses with two different prescriptions and managed to order both with the same prescription, leaving no record anywhere of the second Rx.
LensDirect has a great range of styles and offers great-looking vintage looks at a very reasonable price once discounts are rolled in. The shopping experience is a little clunkier than our top recommendations, but we were easily able to find frames that really suited us and felt the resulting glasses were among our favorites of the group.
Easy returns and at-home try-ons: Liingo
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Liingo highlights their excellent home try-on program, and we felt it was a great option to have and let us get a pretty good idea of what we wanted. And if you&#;re not happy, they have a very generous return policy: 60 days, twice as long as most online glasses retailers, and they cover shipping.
Liingo has a solid search and shopping features, a well-thought-out virtual try-on tool that provides useful feedback on fit as well as a general guide to what size ranges will work (this was accurate in our testing, recommending a &#;medium&#; width in our case &#; a general recommendation, but certainly correct in the company&#;s sizing). A smartphone app lets you scan your current glasses (assuming you&#;re happy with them) to generate a prescription if you don&#;t have one on hand.
We requested a sample kit and ended up ordering three pairs from it, though after checking out the sample kit we decided on different frame colors. The pairs we received were all of very high quality (on par with Warby Parker&#;s offerings and GlassesUSA&#;s house brand Muse lineup) , with spring hinges, securely fitted lenses and a solid finish save for a couple of barely perceptible tooling marks.
Prices are relatively low: Basic pairs including single-vision prescriptions start at well under $100, and fully decked-out progressives with photochromic lenses will run you in the neighborhood of $400.
Liingo isn&#;t in-network with any insurance provider, but the company will assist you with the proper forms and an itemized receipt to submit for out-of-network reimbursement (of course you&#;ll want to check to make sure what your vision coverage includes).
Liingo gives you a 60-day return period, with full refunds &#; the longest of any of the retailers we looked at, which should give you more freedom to experiment with the frames on offer.
Liingo offers a relatively limited selection of frames compared to Eyebuydirect or Zenni. The range of styles is pretty representative of common styles, from Wayfarer-inspired styles to round and square and rectangular acetate, browline and wireframe, but if you are looking for a wide range of funky styles or are very particular about finding a variant of something in exactly the size and shape you want, you may be out of luck.
We liked Liingo&#;s selection of stylish frames, and the company delivers a good quality pair of glasses for a reasonable price. Frame selection is somewhat limited, but a home try-on kit makes it easy to make decisions with confidence, as does the two-month return window.
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Tifosi has supplied affordable performance glasses to athletes for the past two decades, and their high-value, durable sunglasses and prescription pairs have been favorites of cyclists, runners and golfers. While the brand has typically sold via specialty sporting goods stores and some optical shops, it has recently branched out into direct-to-consumer sales and, recognizing the limited range of options available to those looking for corrective sports glasses online, have more recently begun selling prescription pairs online.
Most importantly for many buyers, Tifosi is able to produce a good-quality performance eyeglass at a lower cost than most of the competition. Single vision glasses start at $90, while single vision sunglasses start at $120.
Our order &#; with progressive prescription, Fototec photosensitive lenses and both antifog and antireflective coatings &#; was a little pricier, coming to $370 in total, mostly due to the prescription itself. It&#;s not quite as inexpensive as Zenni (though Tifosi&#;s glasses are of noticeably nicer fit and finish), but it&#;s cheaper than Roka (albeit not as stylish or quite as well built).
Tifosi clearly knows how to make a good-quality pair of sports glasses, and the company&#;s long experience in performance optics really shows. The accent here is on function over fashion (more on that in a bit), and the sample pair we tested was well built, impressively lightweight, grippy enough to stay in place when things got sweaty and configured to provide good coverage and protection from wind and sun.
Ordering is simple and straightforward &#; you choose from the range of options (mostly sunglass color choices, though Fototec lenses are only available in a gray tint).
It&#;s difficult to make wraparound-style curvatures work with a strong prescription (in excess of +/-4.00, which is what this reviewer wears &#; a reasonably good test for the limits of lens manufacturing), so we went with the most curvature we could get. The site does indicate clearly the range of prescriptions curved styles can handle, most of which top out as expected around +/-4, aside from the Swick, which can handle a broader range of corrections, from +6.00 to -4.00.
We ordered the slightly curved Tifosi Swank SL, with a progressive prescription (it really helps to see those bike computers and running watches) and the company&#;s &#;Fototec&#; photosensitive sunglass lens, which changes from clear in dim conditions to a dark gray tint in bright sun.
Styles tend toward generous coverage &#; totally appropriate given that these are intended for active use before fashion &#; and the SLs were very effective running and cycling in windy, misty and rainy conditions. The half frames and well-cut optics gave us a clear view of the road surface and various fitness trackers, watches and computers, and the frame design directed sweat out of the way very effectively.
While we wouldn&#;t hesitate to recommend Tifosi to anyone looking for an inexpensive performance-oriented prescription sunglass, there are some things to keep in mind.
First off, while Tifosi offers a wide range of styles in nonprescription sunglasses, only a limited subset of those &#; 12 models &#; are available for prescription order. That said, the styles that are available should cover the needs of most people looking for sports sunglasses. Still, it&#;s clearly as yet an addendum to the company&#;s retail business.
In keeping with that, the customer experience is bare-bones compared to competitors who specialize in direct-to-consumer glasses. There aren&#;t any virtual try-on tools or fitting guides here. There&#;s not that much to direct you beyond basic measurements (which are not accessible directly from the prescription page &#; you&#;ll have to look for each frame&#;s non-RX page to find them) and indications of the range of pupillary distances appropriate for each pair (three of the available RX styles are meant for smaller faces).
You&#;re basically choosing by pursuit &#; you get a few pairs of cycling, running and general-use sunglass styles. Given the functional orientation of the brand, that makes sense, but these aren&#;t likely to be your everyday pair. If you&#;re looking for an all-rounder that can take you from your long run to a long meeting and out to dinner, you might want to look to Roka instead.
Delivery time is slow compared to competitors. Tifosi estimates three weeks for orders; ours arrived in four &#; on the long side for online prescription glasses in our experience, with most competitors delivering in two weeks or less.
It&#;s tough to find good prescription sports sunglasses even at retail, and Tifosi offers a solid middle-of-the-road option &#; these are well-thought-out, practical glasses, of better quality than the slightly cheaper models available from Zenni and other low-cost online brands, and while the limited range of styles may mean these aren&#;t likely to be your all-day glasses, you&#;ll be happy wearing these daily for workouts.
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Caddis has, in the past, addressed the needs of fashionable Gen Xers and Boomers with a line of quirky readers, and introduced prescription lenses more recently. The overall aesthetic is chunky, oversized and fun, with bright colors and fanciful touches &#; extreme coastal grandmother, if your grandmother promoted indie shows in Portland.
Caddis bills itself as a &#;cult,&#; and the site highlights the lifestyle angle, with stories of the company&#;s charitable efforts, a magazine-style blog featuring the varied activities of the company&#;s very hip fans, playlists, some interesting culture writing and more.
We liked that once we ordered our frames, we were sent a sample along with instructions for taking a photograph for proper fitting (this is, as mentioned above, particularly helpful for setting segment height for progressive lenses). The resulting glasses we received were of very high quality and smooth finish, with a premium feel that compared to frames that cost much more. The lenses were well-cut, with a wide field of vision from distance to reading (the oversized lens are really nice for reading).
As befits the older crowd Caddis addresses, the company&#;s single-vision pricing is high. It&#;s more favorable on the high end: high-index photochromic lenses, even with a progressive prescription, top out at just over $500. If you like Caddis&#;s style, you&#;ll get your money&#;s worth.
Caddis has an impressive range of styles and colors, but the great majority run towards the chunky and oversized; if you&#;ve got a small or narrow face, you might be out of luck. The Caddis site features a ton of beautiful product photography, but the shopping experience is still a work in progress. If you browse the prescription glasses collection you won&#;t find any measurements &#; they&#;re only given for readers. Luckily the same frames are used for both sides of the operation, which you might not realize at first unless you do some poking around.
Caddis&#;s prices are relatively high at the low end: you&#;ll be paying about what you would at an optician, as frames with single-vision lenses begin around $250. But the glasses are of very good quality and are, in our opinion, worth the money if you like the style.
The brand doesn&#;t try to be all things to all people, so options are somewhat limited, but if you like the aesthetic you can&#;t really go wrong with Caddis&#;s frames, which back up their looks with solid builds and quality optics.
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
As one of the biggest optical chains in the US, LensCrafters probably needs no introduction. If you&#;ve ever purchased glasses, you&#;ve probably bought a pair from the Luxottica-owned brand. It&#;s moved into online retail now, providing an overall similar experience to its sibling online-only brand Glasses.com, but with the added bonus of a hybrid approach that takes advantage of its brick-and-mortar locations to get you an exam or a fitting. The site really seems built more as an entry to LensCrafters&#; in-person shopping than a standalone experience (which, of course, is why Glasses.com exists).
Shopping tools are very complete and usable. The site has a wealth of informational content on pretty much every aspect of eyewear and eye care, along with the full suite of things we like: clear, easy-to-find, complete measurements for each frame; virtual try-on tools; a tool to mark favorites while shopping for easy comparison; and more. And while the company doesn&#;t offer samples for try-on, for many frames it will direct you to a local LensCrafters shop where you can try on in person
LensCrafters is big on options. As you might expect given how big LensCrafters is, you get a ton of options for lens types, coatings, tints and such. Where some smaller retailers offer two choices of Ray-Ban lens tints, you&#;ll find five at LensCrafters.
Pricing is in line with what you&#;d expect in store. Basic prescriptions in house-brand frames are available for $100, while premium-brand frames with progressive prescriptions and all the fixings can run in the $600-$800 range. Discount codes are readily available, however.
LensCrafters is one of the few online retailers we checked out that is in-network with a number of vision insurers, including sibling brand EyeMed. This makes it easier to save around $100 on one pair per year (the typical allotment via vision coverage), since you won&#;t have to apply for reimbursement as with most online opticians.
We did get very well-made glasses here, both branded (Ray-Ban, in this case) and house brand, with clean construction, well-made lenses with good optical quality and even a data sheet on lens manufacture (a curiosity for the most part, but perhaps useful for customer service or replacement in the event of an issue).
Perhaps because it is just one element of the company&#;s hybrid approach, the LensCrafters site is something of a work in progress. Account signup and login can be glitchy, requiring multiple attempts at username and password selection before we managed to get it working, and we were repeatedly logged out during the shopping and checkout process. We noticed that we were repeatedly recommended styles that were out of stock or discontinued. It&#;s possible this has to do with fluctuating in-store stock, but we didn&#;t run across this issue on Glasses.com.
LensCrafters&#; site gives you a ton of options, but it&#;s a little clunky considered on its own. But it makes a lot of sense as a tool for getting set up to visit a brick-and-mortar LensCrafters shop with a clear plan of action.
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Glasses.com is the web-only retail storefront for the Luxottica brands. The offerings are similar to LensCrafters&#;, though you&#;ll find a more streamlined experience and some different models on sale between the two shops.
As you shop, you&#;ll want to pay attention to sales and special offers, which can reduce prices by a significant amount. We waited for a 50% off lenses offer, which we were able to couple with a 20% off total coupon, bringing the price of pair of Ray-Bans with all available options down to a very reasonable price &#; not quite in the Zenni range, but competitive with online-first retailers like GlassesUSA and Warby Parker.
Glasses.com is an in-network provider for a range of major insurance plans (including EyeMed, its sibling Luxottica company). so depending on your coverage you may be able to save without having to put in for reimbursement.
As with LensCrafters, we really liked the glasses we got from Glasses.com &#; the brand-name (Oakley in this case) and house-branded frames and lenses were well-executed, with clear optics and solid fit and finish. All spare parts for the Oakleys were included, and as with LensCrafters, you get a data sheet detailing the lens construction.
Like its sibling site LensCrafters, Glasses.com&#;s site is a bit of a work in progress. While shopping, we met repeated glitches like hung virtual try-on tools, and we were unpredictably and repeatedly signed out of our account. It&#;s annoying, and we expect will improve over time, but it introduces some unnecessary friction.
If you like LensCrafters&#; selection, don&#;t plan on visiting a physical store and want a slightly slicker online shopping experience, Glasses.com gives you that, along with a discount structure more like other online-only direct-to-consumer brands.
Cheeky, chunky styles and straightforward pricing: Eyebobs
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
The quirky Minneapolis shop &#; which came to national attention as the supplier of heroic host Bernard&#;s readers on the Westworld series &#; offers a range of really interesting styles, with high-quality material, great fit and finish and refreshingly straightforward styles.
Like Caddis, Eyebobs has dug in on quirky, fun looks, with a selection of frames ranging from the chunky to the downright sculptural in a broad spectrum of colors to match (or clash productively) with any ensemble. Even the names are fun.
Since the looks on offer can be fairly extreme, Eyebobs has plenty of assistance to walk you through the process. A quiz gets you in the ballpark, and a virtual try-on tool (a little clunky on the site, but very accurate via the mobile app) gives you an accurate preview of how the frames might look on your face.
If that&#;s not sufficient, Eyebobs has a team of personal stylists to assist you. During the shopping process, you can set up a free appointment to talk through some frames that might suit your personal taste (even if you might not think so at first).
Pricing is simple and reasonable, if not cheap. All of Eyebobs&#; frames (save for designer collaborations like the current Lake & Harriet line) are priced the same: Readers are $95, sunglasses $135, basic single-vision pairs start at $245 and pairs made with all of the possible options (high-index photochromic progressives) top out at $485.
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We ordered a pair of Waylaid readers (one of the brand&#;s signature styles) in a crystal gray shade that &#; while not on the more extreme end of Eyebobs&#; style &#; suited our look. They arrived within a week; the fit lined up perfectly with our expectations based on try-on with the mobile app, and we were impressed with the fit and finish.
Eyebobs&#; personal stylist service has some scheduling glitches and we found it impossible to actually get in touch with a stylist. It&#;s not clear from the invitation that you need to log into the site and confirm your appointment, or where to obtain the meeting address itself. It&#;s a great idea, but the implementation needs work.
If you&#;re looking for something that grabs attention, whether with bright colors or sculptural shapes, Eyebobs has you covered. Good shopping and fit tools, fair pricing and a simple process make it easy to experiment.
Endless colors and customizable styles: Pair
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Pair takes a modular approach to style, catering to those who like to change things up with a limited number of &#;Base Frame&#; styles that can be dressed up with a larger variety of affordable, magnetically attached &#;Tops&#; (including everything from plain-vanilla sunglass clip-ons to comics and brand tie-ins).
Pair&#;s glasses are very affordable &#; Base Frames are $60, and Tops start at $25. The Tops, which attach magnetically to the Bases, don&#;t really alter the basic look of the frames but give you a fun, affordable way to experiment with colors and patterns or to match your eyewear to the rest of your outfit, even if you change things up significantly every day.
The sunglass &#;clip-on&#; versions of the Tops are actually pretty ingenious &#; combining the slim plastic frames with a tinted lens, they&#;re lower profile and less bulky than most clip-ons we&#;ve encountered, and are easy to slip into a pocket (or keep in the specialized pocket on the exterior of the case that ships with your Pair Base Frames). They&#;re also very easy to apply and remove, without any fear of scratching your lenses.
Since there isn&#;t a huge variety of choices on offer for the frames (13 variants, three of which are only available in smaller sizes for kids), selection is pretty simple. Sizing and frame measurements are clearly indicated, and the process of choosing a frame, selecting lens type and coatings and adding as many Tops as you like with your order is clean and straightforward. After we ordered, turnaround time was speedy; we received our finished pair in 11 days.
If you&#;re looking for quirky style, Pair doesn&#;t deliver in the same way that, say, Caddis or Eyebobs does, with signature sculptural shapes and downright oddball, limited-edition designs. Pair&#;s aim is different, so it&#;s good to set your expectations appropriately.
Pair&#;s focus is on affordable fun, so it isn&#;t surprising that the Base Frames are, in terms of look, build quality and aesthetic, exactly what you&#;d expect at the price. They&#;re akin to the basic acetate frames you might get from LensCrafters, Costco or Zenni, so think of fast fashion rather than an heirloom piece as you&#;re browsing.
You won&#;t find much in the way of interesting frame shapes or weights &#; the overall aesthetic of the Base Frames is pretty vanilla, and the visual interest comes mostly from the colorful Tops. Pair offers only a baker&#;s dozen base frames (three are kid-specific; the other 10 cover traditional men&#;s and women&#;s styles &#; square, rectangular and rounded styles, plus a couple of semi-cat-eye shapes).
Pair makes sense if you want glasses that let you blend in at the office but can dress up with a whole bunch of color options for other occasions. And they&#;re cheap enough for almost any glasses wearer to experiment with.
Luxurious retro-cool classics and great customer service: Moscot
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Moscot is a New York City institution (though there are now shops across the country and internationally), and its quirky, chunky retro glasses have long been favorites of actors, musicians, influencers and other celebs. Like many brick-and-mortar brands, the company has turned its attention to online sales, and now its frames are available direct to consumers, with a fully built-out shopping experience that rivals some online retail specialists.
First off, The Moscot Dahven frames we received are one of the best-looking, best-constructed pairs of glasses we encountered over the course of working on this review, on par with the pair we received from Alexander Daas.
Moscot&#;s frame styles tend toward classic, retro looks, though typically at heavier weights than you might expect &#; if you like chunky frames you&#;ve come to the right place. Most frames are available in a range of interesting earth tones, tortoiseshell finishes and translucents, most of them in the company&#;s signature heavyweight acetate, though some wire styles are available as well.
But back to our sample pair. The Dahven&#;s build quality is impressive. There&#;s not a rough edge to be found anywhere on the heavy acetate frames, the hinges are smooth and the careful build is evident in the way the arms lay perfectly flat when you fold the glasses &#; no slight misalignments as you might find on cheaper glasses, and everything is fitted perfectly, without creaking or rubbing. The lenses are accurately cut and of perceptibly high clarity and optical quality.
Moscot&#;s online shop combines some of the best features of remote shopping with the kind of personalized attention you&#;d get at a good optician. Onsite, you get fitting tools including a well-executed 3D virtual try-on (on iOS), a handy sizing guide, tons of images of each frame in multiple sizes on a diverse set of models and plenty of measurements to work from.
What&#;s even better, however, is the personalized service. Online chat is staffed with actual human beings &#; the company&#;s &#;Frame Fit Specialists&#;&#; &#; who get back to you quickly with answers to questions. This is something we didn&#;t see everywhere, and that really makes a difference in negotiating the range of styles on hand.
You can also schedule a virtual style and fit consultation via video call. While the quality of these calls varied considerably among competitors, the specialist I worked with at Moscot was very helpful &#; even surprisingly so. While as part of the appointment-making process I&#;d provided a bunch of information on what I thought I was looking for, he ended up recommending a frame, color and size I wouldn&#;t have considered on my own &#; which it turned out to be perfect. This was the best, most in-store-like experience of any &#;online&#; retailer we looked at for this review.
Perhaps that&#;s to be expected given the company&#;s luxury brick-and-mortar background, but it&#;s refreshing to get good advice, and overall the experience was on par with an in-person shopping trip. Plus, the turnaround time for our order was very speedy &#; we had our sample pair of glasses in seven business days, the fastest of the online retailers we tried.
Budget matters, and as with other luxury glasses brands, you won&#;t save any money ordering online with Moscot &#; and if you&#;re interested in the brand you understand that&#;s not really the point here. You visit the Moscot site because you don&#;t have access to the frames you want at your local brick-and-mortar shop rather than to save a few bucks.
Still, even considering that, these can be expensive glasses. Single vision pairs with standard lenses start at around $420, and if you need a progressive prescription and want photosensitive lenses, a fully spec&#;d pair can cost around $1,100 &#; about what you&#;d expect to pay in a good optical shop (largely because Moscot is a good optical shop).
It&#;s hard to find fault with Moscot&#;s glasses &#; the product and the shopping experience are both top-notch, and among the best we found while researching and testing for this review. The price is very high, however, and we realize that many shoppers might be wary of plunking down so much money on a product they&#;ve only been able to shop for virtually &#; if they&#;re willing to plunk down so much money at all. But that said, given the overall positives here it&#;s absolutely worth considering Moscot if it&#;s within your budget and you like the signature style.
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Jins, a Japanese brand with New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles retail stores, concentrates on classic looks in wire and plastic, generally offering similar styles in standard and oversized versions. While more and more brands offer low-bridge fits nowadays, Jins has focused on flexible, inclusive fitting more than any other brand we ran across. Even many of their acetate frames have adjustable nose pads, and many others are offered in multiple fit options.
The Jins site is very clear and simple to shop. Search tools are effective; full measurements are given for each frame in a clear, easy-to-navigate layout; a favorites collection tool lets you put interesting frames aside for later comparison; and virtual fit tools are fast and accurate.
Jins&#; range of fit is impressive. While our acetate frames fit out of the box without adjustment, they offered a lot more range than many similar models we looked at from other manufacturers given the addition of large adjustable nose pads as used on many wire and browline styles. This makes the frames a little bulkier, but if you&#;ve had trouble finding a good fit, it is likely worth it and the streamlined styles are very accommodating.
Pricing is relatively inexpensive, with single-vision pairs available starting at $90; progressive photochromics can run between $330 and $430, depending on frame selection. They also come with a 30-day warranty.
Jins has had stock issues lately and has run into some shipping delays. To their credit, Jins warned us of this during the ordering process and estimated that our pair of readers might take as long as a month to arrive. That said, our order arrived in just over two weeks, which was a pleasant surprise. At time of publication it looked like many styles were out of stock, at least in some colors, so it&#;s worth browsing with an open mind.
If you&#;re in need of stylish frames with a low nose-bridge fit, you&#;ll find a treasure trove of options at Jins. Just be aware that frames go out of stock quickly and be flexible on colors and styles and you&#;ll likely find a frame you&#;ll like.
High-end luxury styles from home: Alexander Daas
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Alexander Daas, a California-based high-end optician with a celebrity following, has moved into full-service online retail, offering their own house brand along with a full range of other luxury brands. It&#;s not cheap &#; in fact, it&#;s about as expensive as you&#;d expect given the lineup &#; but they make a great pair of glasses and if you&#;re interested in high-fashion brands and your local doesn&#;t carry them, Alexander Daas can provide those options at a distance. It isn&#;t for everybody, but it&#;s an interesting option for very high-quality frames.
What we liked about Alexander Daas
While the site experience is very minimal, ordering is straightforward, with clearly laid-out options for choosing lens materials, coatings and so forth. Prescription entry is via upload of an image &#; not our favorite sort of system, but customer service is very responsive and followed up by to confirm within a day.
Also, once we placed our order, we received a pair of sample frames of the style we&#;d ordered, along with instructions on taking a photo to set segment height (we ordered a progressive prescription). We followed the directions, submitted photos and got a confirmation from an optician same day. The finished glasses arrived in just over a week.
The glasses we received from Alexander Daas were of very high quality &#; possibly the best construction and finish of anything in the test group. Lenses had great clarity as well. We&#;d ordered all of the options &#; thin photochromic lenses along with blue-light filtering &#; and were impressed by the optical clarity.
What we didn&#;t like about Alexander Daas
The shopping experience is pretty basic. You don&#;t get elaborate search tools, just filtering by brand, material and style. The idea is that you&#;ll be choosing primarily on aesthetics in any case, but especially given the brand&#;s emphasis on carrying a range of fits (and they advertise their broad selection of frames with narrow sizes meant for people with smaller faces), it would be nice to see full measurements and a tool to search by size (or better yet, a virtual try-on feature).
Pricing is on par with high-end brick-and-mortar opticians. Frames begin at around $240 before lenses and range on up past $700, so once you add your prescription and whatever tints and coatings you need, it&#;s easy to end up north of $1,000.
If you&#;ve got luxury taste (and the budget to match) but don&#;t have access to a high-end optician in your area, Alexander Daas has you covered &#; and they make a great pair of glasses.
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
As the name implies, Overnight Glasses promises prescription glasses on an incredibly tight turnaround &#; as fast as 24 hours &#; along with significant discounts. It&#;s a compelling proposition for anyone who needs glasses in a pinch (and what glasses-wearer hasn&#;t found themselves in such a situation?).
The Overnight Glasses site has a clean, structured checkout process with good information provided all along the way. Visually the store is quite basic, but the company does a great job of presenting the available options. And you&#;ll find tons of options, including four choices &#; in 4-, 6.5-, 13- and 19-foot optimized focal distances for various activities ranging from fine detail tasks on up &#; for midrange &#;desktop&#; office progressives, where other online vendors typically offer only a single option.
Prices are average &#; simple single-vision complete glasses can be had for under or around $100, though our order, which included brand-name frames and premium progressive lenses with blue light coatings &#; came in at $435 total.
As for the overnight delivery part, overnight shipping is available for single vision; ordering progressives (as we did in testing) gets you a production estimate with overnight shipping once the production process is done.
You&#;ll find a range of of Luxottica-associated major brands here &#; Ray-Ban, Oakley and so forth &#; though it&#;s not as broad a selection as you would at LensCrafters or Eyeconic (as you&#;d expect given the emphasis on quick shipping, the catalog is somewhat more focused than at larger retailers). That said, you&#;ll find a solid range of mainstream styles in popular shapes and colors, though if you&#;re looking for something out of the ordinary you might have a more difficult time.
While the shopping and ordering process was smooth, we did have an issue with Overnight Glasses once our order was in. A manufacturing issue held up our order and we ended up getting the glasses later than expected.
Initially our progressives were estimated at a four day turnaround, with overnight shipping thereafter. Several days after ordering, however, we were notified that the company had encountered a manufacturing delay. We did get a prompt communication from the site regarding the delay, and several days later, we received a note that our order was ready for shipping. Once shipped, we received the order a day later than expected.
While it&#;s impossible to guarantee ship dates these days and we understand that (and it is probably impossible to generalize from our experience), the extended timeframe turned out to be around the 7-10 days we&#;ve encountered with most manufacturers.
That said, communication was clear, and after we received the order we got an offer from the company that they would be glad to offer a backup pair (single-vision) in order to make up for the delay, which is appreciated.
Overnight Glasses is a great service to keep in mind if you need glasses fast, but we&#;d say it&#;s likely best for those who need single-vision prescriptions since those will get you the fastest shipping and they require the simplest manufacturing process. Our experience was likely a glitch, and the company did their best to make good on the order which we appreciate, but given that more complex orders (like the progressives we ordered) are estimated to take a few days longer in any case the company is then competing with a wide range of other online retailers who have in our experience been able to deliver in about a week.
A full range of brand-name frames and an easy way to use your vision insurance: Eyeconic
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Eyeconic is the online retail brand of vision care giant VSP; meaning you&#;ll get access to a huge range of VSP-associated brand-name frames &#; and if you have VSP, MetLife, or Cigna vision coverage it&#;s easy to use your insurance to get your new glasses. So if you have a vision plan and your tastes run towards major brands, Eyeconic is absolutely worth a look.
The shopping experience is smooth, with well-designed search by pretty much any criterion you&#;d want to consider, from frame shape and color to brand, material, price and so on. A speedy and cleanly designed virtual try-on tools that even works well on desktop (a bit of a rarity) is available for a wide range of frame types.
Since Eyeconic is a VSP brand, you&#;ll find offerings for tons of big name frames, from vision specialists like Ray-Ban to Persol to designers like Tom Ford and Lanvin and Paul Smith, sportswear names such as Nike and Oakley along with lots of house-brands and smaller names. You&#;re likely to find frames to suit a very wide range of tastes, though if you&#;re looking for more of a statement frame &#; whether in-your-face, avant-garde or retro &#; you might not come across exactly the look you want.
The sample we received &#; in 9 business days, a day ahead of our projected delivery date, always a nice surprise &#; was very well made, with cleanly cut lenses precisely to our wearer&#;s prescription, feature and coating specifications. Fit was accurate and matched expectations given fitting tools (the specific sample we ordered was not included in the virtual lineup, but other similar frames with near-identical sizing from the same brand were, so we resorted to those when testing to get a sense of what to expect from the brand (in this case, Skaga).
Pricing is pretty much on par with what you&#;ll find at major brick and mortar retailers &#; you won&#;t find many bargain-basement frames, so average single-vision complete will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 to 200, while our test pair with advanced progressive lenses and blue light coating came in at just over $500 &#; but we&#;ve found over the course of testing that if your prescription is at all challenging (progressive, corrections for astigmatism, etcetera) you do seem to get what you pay for in stepping up from the budget brands in terms of lens quality. Not that the budget brands do a poor job &#; and they are entirely competitive for single-vision &#; but Eyeconic, like others in this price range, did a fine job of producing our sample pair.
While this is not so much a &#;dislike&#; as a simple observation, Eyeconic isn&#;t a value brand &#; prices are about what you&#;d find at brick and mortar &#; so getting a good deal here is a matter of already being in the VSP ecosystem, i.e., having a VSP vision plan through work. If you&#;re covered, you can potentially knock a couple of hundred bucks off of the site&#;s prices, but otherwise you can end up spending what you would in a shop.
Since Eyeconic&#;s pricing and frame choice is so similar to what you&#;d get at major brick and mortar retailers, the real reservation we&#;d have about Eyeconic is exactly what place it might have your online shopping needs actually is. Many of the online retailers we&#;ve checked out stake out territory distinct from what you might find at a Lenscrafters or local optician, either by offering a compelling value or a range of unique styles or specialties. Eyeconic, rather, seems aimed at people with insurance with more everyday tastes and needs who might not have time to visit a local shop but want dependable results from familiar brands. If that&#;s you, you&#;ll want to pay the site a visit next time you&#;re in need of new glasses.
Gamer-inspired styles and a focus on blue-light protection: Gunnar
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Initially making a splash on &#;Shark Tank,&#; Gunnar has since offered a line of glasses featuring blue-light-blocking coatings and aimed squarely at gamers, tech folks and similar digital power users. Styles run toward the techy and nerd culture, so you get a lot of futuristic shapes, including styles inspired by Marvel characters. So, if you want to look like Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, they have you covered, along with plenty of more-pedestrian shapes that&#;ll fit in even if you don&#;t work at Stark Industries.
The Gunnar site is well laid out, with virtual fit tools and lots of information on the company&#;s lens technologies. It&#;s easy to find what you want, and everything is clearly illustrated. Online prescription retailers have really improved their shopping and research tools lately, and Gunnar&#;s offerings are in keeping with the industry. If you&#;re into the idea of blue-blockers, you won&#;t have any trouble finding what you like here.
We selected the company&#;s most popular lens, an amber tint designed to block 65% of blue light at a wavelength of 450 nanometers &#; you can also get a clear blue-blocker that cuts out a claimed 35% of blue light at the same wavelength &#; in a prescription meant for computer use. We wore them for a month of computer-related tasks &#; so for the better part of every workday. Gunnar is interesting in that they offer a choice of blue-light tinting like this; we didn&#;t come across any other direct-to-consumer brand that provided these options.
The prescription was accurate, and once we got the frames adjusted to taste, the glasses were comfortable. They were reasonably lightweight for acetate, good-looking, and had convenience features like spring hinges, which are always good to see in an everyday pair.
The lenses are nice and contrasting and give everything a sunny, warm look, with a distinct yellow cast. The blue-blocking effect is quite noticeable looking at the glasses, but as long as you&#;re good with the look, it&#;s actually pretty pleasant. And while in actuality the tint is reducing the amount of light you&#;re getting, the perceived effect is that your surrounds are brighter.
Pricing is value-focused, though not bargain basement, so Gunnar is on par with other direct-to-consumer prescription glasses offering similar quality and products. Pricing begins at just under $200 for a complete pair, while our test sample (a pair of progressive lenses with 65% tint) came in at $343.
Since the 65% amber tint gives the glasses a distinct honey-colored cast, the effect is very noticeable. They resemble a pair of vintage shades you&#;d expect Donald Sutherland to be sporting in a &#;70s thriller. They do have a noticeable effect on your color perception (it&#;s much like running your Mac in Night Shift mode), so we wouldn&#;t recommend these if you&#;re doing color-sensitive work like photo or video editing.
Gunnar suggests that their glasses &#; and blue-light glasses in general &#; are helpful in managing eyestrain from screen use. But do they actually work? Everyone&#;s concerned about eyestrain and sleep disruption from overuse of digital devices these days, but while there&#;s a ton of discussion of blue-light protection out there and dozens of eyeglass makers addressing the problem, there isn&#;t much of a consensus about what exactly these sorts of lenses do.
A recent large-scale literature review has suggested that there is no benefit to blue-light glasses and that they may not address the root causes of eye discomfort. Frequent breaks to combat the decreased blinking and dryness that comes with extended screen use, a larger screen and if you wear prescription glasses, getting a pair with a correction specific to computer- and desk-working distance may help more. There is some evidence, however, that blue-light glasses may help you sleep better, so it may be a matter of keeping your expectations in line.
Whether or not blue-light blocking delivers on its promises in general, good sleep is worth a little extra effort, and if a good pair of glasses can contribute to better rest, Gunnar&#;s models may be worth your time and money. At the very least, you get a good-looking, well-cut pair of glasses, and if you&#;re into the gamer/Marvel aesthetic, you&#;re quite likely to find a pair that fits your passions.
Bold, stylish frames and a focus on giving back: Diff Eyewear
Michael Berk/CNN Underscored
Diff Eyewear is a stylish, direct-to-consumer glasses brand that&#;s built on a charitable-giving approach, similar to that taken by sneaker brand Toms: Diff contributes a percentage of each sale to vision-focused charities. Currently the company works with Sightsavers, which provides eye examinations, surgery, glasses and medication to the developing world. It&#;s a good mission, so we checked out the styles on offer to see if they&#;re as attractive as the company&#;s efforts.
Diff offers a wide range of good-looking frames in up-to-date styles, mostly in chunky acetates. Diff offers an even broader selection of sunglasses, so the styling tends toward the big and bold, with lots of big cat eyes and geometric shapes. If you&#;re looking for special-occasion frames or you&#;re the sort of glasses wearer who likes to switch it up, you&#;re sure to find a lot to choose from.
Women&#;s selections are much more plentiful than men&#;s (the latter get mostly updated vintage through s looks), though everything comes in a lot of colorways. Several frames we looked at came in a half dozen finish choices, which is more than we&#;ve seen from most online retailers.
Pricing is on the reasonable end, with many frames priced in the $119 to $139 range and complete pairs starting at just under $200. Our test pair, which had progressive lenses, came in at $374 &#; around average for the retailers we&#;ve been looking at. Delivery time was around average as well; we had our finished pair in hand 12 business days after ordering.
Our test pair was well built, and the prescription lenses were well cut and right in line with what we&#;d expect from our prescription. Everything looked sharp and clear, with no noticeable distortions or irregularities. The frame color matched our expectations as well, based on what we&#;d seen represented on the site, and though we weren&#;t able to do a virtual try on, sizing was also as we expected. Adjustable nosepieces are employed on several of the brand&#;s acetate styles and made fitting simple.
The site is relatively basic compared to most of the retailers we&#;ve looked at. There aren&#;t any virtual try-on tools, though each pair is well photographed and shown worn by models in representative poses that make it easy to see what you&#;re getting. That said, at this point in time, potential purchasers probably expect more in terms of shopping ease, though given that a lot of the styles on display are oversized and may make more sense as an accent or special-occasion pair than a daily driver, that&#;s probably OK.
On a similar note, checkout is very simple. There&#;s no tool during the process to collect your prescription info and store it for future or multiple orders. Rather, you upload a PDF of your prescription for review by a Diff optician. While this works fine in our experience (we were contacted quickly by a representative to confirm details), we&#;d prefer to see an online tool that let us enter our data and check it ourselves. Even if someone follows up, it&#;s nice to feel confident that you&#;ve gotten the data right the first time. This method also means you&#;ll also need to add more info (pupillary distance, for instance) during your exchange with the company.
Diff has an admirable mission, and among the company&#;s frame designs, there&#;s certainly something for everyone, unless you&#;re mostly looking for wire or rimless styles. We think those who prefer large, bold, chunky statement frames will likely be best served by Diff, as will those looking for prescription or nonprescription sunglasses or readers, though there are plenty of everyday choices as well.
How and why to buy glasses online
First off, we can&#;t tell you what you like. If you&#;re like us, you wear glasses every day, and choosing a pair of frames has mostly to do with your personal style &#; which is why it&#;s great that there are a ton of good online retailers, since you get broad access to an endless range of looks.
All the retailers we looked at for this review were able to deliver a well-cut prescription in a timely fashion. Thus, in our testing, we focused on which retailers provided the best overall retail experience, ensuring that we&#;d get a great pair of frames built with a perfectly executed prescription and the options we&#;d requested, comparable to what we&#;d get from a brick-and-mortar optician.
What did we find? Basically, online shoppers are spoiled for choice and anyone who lives outside of a major urban center will likely find a bigger range of styles and fits online than they will locally. We&#;ve zeroed in on the best of the bunch, and no matter what you&#;re looking for and what size your budget, we should be able to point you in the right direction.
That depends. If you shop around online, it&#;s very likely that you will save money versus purchasing at your local optician &#; though exactly how much will depend on a few factors.
If you have a simple prescription &#; single vision, below +/- 4.00 &#; and don&#;t want an ultra-thin lens or special coatings or tints, across the board you&#;ll likely spend around $100. Should you need something more complex, you&#;ll spend more, though likely less than you would on brand-name pairs at a local optical shop.
You do give up the benefits that come with in-person fitting, dispensing and adjustments, though these matter less if you have a straightforward single-vision prescription, and depending on your budget it may well be worth spending more to have access to a knowledgeable professional.
If you&#;re interested in brand names, you should watch for sales, coupons and discount codes as you would with any other online shopping. Over the course of our testing, we were typically able to find discounts of up to 40% off the price of our orders. Many retailers also offer second pairs at a steep discount, so it&#;s worth keeping an eye out.
An open question is insurance, which can cover a significant amount at most brick-and-mortar opticians, narrowing the gap pretty significantly with online offerings. That said, depending on your coverage and where you shop, you might get a break on your online order too. Insurance plans typically cover one pair of glasses per year (though generally only a portion of the cost, usually around $100).
Most low-cost retailers &#; Zenni, for example &#; don&#;t accept insurance (they aren&#;t in-network with any plan). Some (GlassesUSA, for instance) ease the process of asking for out-of-network reimbursement via many plans with convenient links to the necessary forms.
You&#;ll have the easiest time with insurance if you go with the brick-and-mortar hybrids or retailers associated with the big optical corporations. LensCrafters and Glasses.com are in-network providers for a number of popular insurance plans (and are sibling brands of EyeMed). VSP, another major insurer, runs its own online store, Eyeconic.
Get your prescriptions and measurements in order
If you plan to buy glasses online, you can go get an eye exam anywhere you like, get a prescription and use it anywhere you like. The FTC&#;s Eyeglass Rule requires any eye doctor you see to provide you with a prescription. Easy enough.
But you need another measurement to get a pair of glasses made accurately: your pupillary distance (PD) &#; the distance between the centers of your pupils. While the optometrist and ophthalmologist we saw locally were happy to provide this number for us, this can be more difficult to obtain, especially if you get your eye exam through a doctor whose practice is housed within or linked to a dispensing optician. Dispensing opticians have long argued that the PD measurement is part of the fitting process and not part of the prescription, and most states have not defined it as such, putting it in a gray area.
Brick-and-mortar shops are sometimes reluctant to give PD information to a patient who isn&#;t a glasses customer, out of the understandable fear that they&#;re giving up business and that they may be held liable in the event that whoever does fill the prescription may do substandard work. That said, many doctors do understand that patients want freedom of choice as to where to shop, and you should absolutely ask.
If you can&#;t get your PD from your doctor, however, you can take the measurement yourself, either using a ruler (this is much easier to do if you can get somebody to help) or by marking a current set of glasses and checking your focus (which takes some practice).
Since it&#;s difficult to be precise, many online glasses retailers have made taking a PD measurement even simpler, offering tools within their browser and mobile apps to take these measurements, typically based on webcam or camera photos taken with a reference card in the frame. We tried these in every case they were available, and each time got a measurement that corresponded with our ophthalmologist-provided PD (we visited an independent doctor who does not dispense).
One note: On our own we weren&#;t able to capture this in the same detail as we were able to get at the ophthalmologist, who measured us at a slightly asymmetrical 62 mm/63 mm split. That said, we were unable to notice the difference in lenses made with and without the asymmetry, and many vendors don&#;t accept a two-number measurement in any case, saying (as did the optometrists we spoke to) that such a small difference is unlikely to be perceptible in a lens, especially if you wear single vision.
Pupillary distance asymmetries are more important to get just right if you wear progressives (and your PD will be slightly different for distance and close-up vision, making for a more complicated measurement). If you&#;ve got a complex prescription you may want to consult an independent ophthalmologist to make sure you have the most precise measurement.
If you do wear progressives or bifocals, you may want to look for one of the few online retailers (Caddis and Alexander Daas for example) who take an additional measurement in order to set the segment height and lessen the chance that you&#;ll have to send them back for adjustment. This typically involves sending you a sample frame to physically try on and having you submit a photo of you wearing them. Retailers who sell online but also have brick-and-mortar locations (Warby Parker, LensCrafters/Glasses.com) can provide this service in person as well as part of a traditional in-person fitting.
Roka formerly offered this sort of service but has dropped it since we tested; their representative told us that their in-house algorithm did a more consistent job of setting segment height than they were able to do using photos, given that the customer-submitted photos varied so much in lighting, quality of focus and so on.
That said, we got perfectly usable lenses in all cases, regardless of how this measurement was taken or synthesized.
Transitions lenses and various other light-reactive or &#;photochromic&#; lens formulations have been around since the mid-s, and while they&#;ve had a reputation for dowdiness they do come in handy if you drive or spend time outdoors and don&#;t want to carry around an extra pair of glasses.
Older versions of the technology never quite got clear indoors, and for that reason many have avoided them, not wanting to look like they were Hollywood stars trying pretending to stay incognito (one Underscored staffer dismissed a pair out of hand, saying, &#;Who are these for, Elton John?&#;). The bigger issue affecting their usefulness is the fact that most formulations don&#;t get dark in the car (because of UV protection film applied to windshields), keeping them from working in one of the most useful applications for sunglasses.
New formulations do solve this problem. We suggest looking out for a shop that offers Transition&#;s XtraActive treatment, which in our testing darkens quickly in a car (and, to some extent, indoors in brightly sunlit rooms), We didn&#;t find it offered widely yet, but it&#;s worth it if you&#;re in and out of the car or on and off the bike a lot during your day.
Luxottica and the independents
As you may have read, the Italian company Luxottica owns a big share of the optical business worldwide. Exactly how big a share isn&#;t quite clear, and there are other big optical groups like Optimax out there as well, but a lot of recognizable brands are under the Luxottica umbrella.
Aside from owning a whole lot of popular eyewear brands such as Ray-Ban, Oliver Peoples, Persol and many others, it owns a big portfolio of retailers, including LensCrafters, and it&#;s moved into online retail as well, with both LensCrafters&#; own site and the more digital-first Glasses.com. Whatever opinion you may hold as to the meaning of Luxottica&#;s presence in the industry, their brands are very popular, and should you be interested in them, the company&#;s own retail outlets are an option.
There are many independents to choose from &#; including major digital retailers Warby Parker and Zenni &#; who don&#;t carry any Luxottica or Optimax brands, but focus on their own house-brand offerings. Other independents may carry a mix.
We began by researching the online eyeglass retail landscape and putting together a list of the best-regarded and most popular premium and discount online-first retailers as well as mainstream and luxury brick-and-mortar opticians that offer a full online shopping experience without requiring a store visit.
While doing this round of research, we got an eye exam from a local provider, so we could begin with a fresh prescription. The ophthalmologist we saw provided PD along with the prescription, so we were able to begin the process with all the data we needed. We obtained two prescriptions, both progressive: one for general distance viewing and the other for mid-range/computer/desk use. Where it was possible to order two or more pairs with separate prescriptions in a single purchase we attempted to do so.
Once we arrived at our final list, we then went ahead and placed at least one order with each retailer. Since we can&#;t account for everyone&#;s sense of style, we ordered frames in styles, shapes and materials that we were accustomed to, including a range of wire, acetate, nylon and rimless models.
Where possible, to get a sense of the range of a retailer&#;s representative offerings, we ordered two pairs: one with the most affordable frames offered, standard lens thickness and no additional coatings and another with a premium frame with high-index lenses and the full complement of additional coatings offered. Where retailers offered curved exercise-oriented glasses (which can be difficult to find even through brick-and-mortar retailers) we ordered a pair.
We made careful notes on the ordering experience, trying out any virtual fitting tools across a range of styles, noting whether the site allowed for easy shopping of and comparison between multiple styles and reading through each site&#;s range of educational and informational material to assess its usefulness.
When they were offered, we made appointments for and took advantage of remote fitting services. Since we were looking for the most generalizable experience, we did not use any brick-and-mortar resources.
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