OT: Prescription Glasses - help!

take a look at

or visit an Asda opticians

Search hit:

(not the 'C' suffix, I don't know what that means)

Theo

I used goggles4u, made in the states, but office in Gloucester. I bought rimless varifocal prescription lenses with coatings for £106....plenty of frames to choose from.

.....I forgot to mention the lenses are photochromic as well.

Maybe. Their site has "We have our production facilities in Thailand, US and Pakistan".

Poke about on the 'net. Stick your details into

Why would that make a difference if the specification is met. More than likely they have a very sophisticated, expensive computer controlled machine, that is accurate and quick.

That's funny. I replied, but cannot see my reply...

My glasses are Flexon Titanium. The frames will withstand bending and can be bent back, and cost less than your £200, maybe about £135. The lenses are a good brand of varifocals and were more like £500. I wish I could remember the brand of the varifocals. I think the optician has to cut the lenses to fit the frames, probably something that can quite easily be got wrong, especially with varifocals.

I avoid Boots ever since they tried to fob be off with some lenses that were wrong, by telling me that I would get used to them. At the time I only wore glasses to drive my car.

I took it that your stating where they were made meant you thought it made a difference (to you or to the OP).

Often the mark up is not all the opticians doing. Its the frame makers and the lens fitters. If the actual size of the lens needed is non standard, they tend to charge what they like from what I recall when I could see. Don't even ask about lens coatings or colours. Brian

you need to go to specsavers! :-)

My Glasses frames are flexible titanium, rimless, no hinge, the frame cost maybe £1.50, (i.e. used in £2.50 reading glasses from ebay). Prescription glasses using exactly the same frame are £25.00, maybe £35.00, post covid/china vat. (superdrug and then selectspecs)

I've never tried varifocals. I just buy loads of different cheap prescription glasses, reading (multiple strengths), intermediate, distance, but my eyes aren't that bad.

Boots gave me a bad prescription and then got shirty when I had a new test and asked to see the prescription before the most recent one (the bad one).

I struggle to understand how varifocals lenses can justify a cost of £350, never mind £500. I accept there a tricky compromises in their design and manufacture and I do understand the need to carefully match them to the wearer ... but £500 for lenses alone?

Maybe you have a very unsual prescription, chosen absolute top end custom-made lenses (such as Zeiss Smartlife), then added optional features (like a Duravision Platinum coating) and used an optician who charges handsomely for his time. I'm not saying you're not pleased with the outcome but you seem to have gone into high end luxury with diminished returns.

By total contrast, Asda do an extremely creditable set of varifocals using quite decent coated lenses for £110 including a reasonable frame. A tinted pair as sunglasses is an extra £70. Two sets of decent varifocal specs for £180 is almost a giveaway. When your presciption changes in a couple of years, throw them away and get new ones.

Well I have been looking at some of the websites and I could save quite a bit of money by buying online. I just need to ask the optician to print out the full details of my prescription.

I don't know how opticians and dentists compare, but my father once lost his false teeth when throwing up out of a car window on the motorway (he was being driven home from work, in agony, with what turned out to be a kidney stone).

He went to the dentist and was quoted £350 for taking an impression and supplying a new, full palette. He found the company that supplied them was local and phoned up. One of the technicians took an impression and they supplied the palette for £50.

That's some mark-up!

Why not use your newsreader properly and avoid posting through the trolls' favourite server? Surely it isn't that hard.

Inter-pupil distance is not part of the standard prescription, but it is something that the glasses-assembler needs to know. I have never quite had the confidence to order glasses "online".

Perhaps that is why one website was telling me how I should measure that distance using a mirror and a tape measure. It has occured to me that I will have to be very careful buying specs online as there are many parameters to specify, and I want photochromic varifocal lenses which make them expensive.