What sort of lenses should you choose? As part of providing the best possible value we can, as well as trying to make the whole online ordering process as fast and as easy as possible, we have decided to offer just two lenses options: Standard lenses and Ultra Lenses.
As already explained elsewhere, we only offer single vision or progressive lenses. We do not offer bifocal lenses or lenses with more complex prescriptions such as prisms.
Here's a detailed description of our two lenses:
Standard Lenses
Standard lenses for single vision are FREE! So if you order glasses and don't specifically choose ultra lenses, you will get standard lenses by default and there will be no additional charge for the lenses as they have already been factored into the price of the glasses. Standard progressive lenses are an extra $80.
Standard lenses are made from optical plastic material called CR-39 and have an index of 1.49. (if this means nothing to you don't worry!)
They are un-coated so they have no scratch resistant coating or UV protection coating or anti-reflection coating - or any other coatings that are possible!
Standard un-coated are actually the most common glasses lenses however as, despite having no specialized coatings, they provide excellent optical vision quality and are of course very cost effective.
The downsides to standard lenses are if you have a sphere measurement of greater than -3.00 (eg: -3.25, -4.50, -5.75 etc) then the outside thickness of the lens starts to get quite thick and can tend to give your glasses a 'goldfish bowl' effect. (minus sphere lenses are concave in shape so they are thinnest in the middle of the lens and thickest on the outside) Especially if you have chosen thin metal or rimless frames. Plus (+) spheres are not so critical because they are convex shaped so the thicker part of the lens is in the middle rather than the outside.
And because they have no scratch resistant coating, if you are regularly in dusty or active environments where your glasses get a bit of a hiding, then they're more likely to suffer surface damage which quickly becomes very annoying to look through!
Our recommendation: Standard lenses are perfect for normal glasses wearing conditions and for spheres of +/- 3.00 or less. You won't get much noticeable additional benefit by upgrading to ultra lenses if you fit into this category.
Ultra lenses
Ultra lenses for single vision are an extra $40 ($20 per lens) but the biggest difference between standard & ultra lenses is the lens thickness. Ultra lenses are up to 40% thinner when making a direct comparison of the exact same prescription. But it is particularly the extreme minus spheres that it is the most noticeable. Ultra progressive lenses are an extra $110.00
So if you have a sphere measurement of greater than -3.00 then you will notice a huge difference in the thinness and overall weight of the lenses in your glasses.
But in additional to the thinner lenses, all our ultra lenses also come with scratch-resistant coating, anti UV coating and anti-reflective coating!
So even if the thinness of the lenses isn't going to be an issue for you, if you do want lenses that provide significant extra value, you are able to choose this.
Ultra lenses are also made from high quality optical plastic and they have an index of either 1.67 or 1.74 depending on the prescription.
Do ultra lenses give better vision than standard? Not really although for higher spheres ultra lenses will cause less visual distortion.
Other lenses info
Do we offer tinted or sunglass lenses? No we don't.
Polarised? No.
Polycarbonate? No.
Transitions/photochromic? No.
Will we ever offer any of these? Hard to say. Possibly eventually, but currently no plans to do so.
Reglazing of frames that a customer provides? Yes! Check this out here
Blue light blocking lenses? No.
Why are our lenses so crazily cheap, are they crap? No! They are probably exactly the same lenses as you've always had in your glasses. It's not about the lenses, it's our business model. We have a very specific business model and this flows through to the price points we choose for our products.