EclectEcon

I recently read about a place called Zenni Optical, where you can order eyeglasses for unbelievably low prices over the internet. How unbelievable? as low as $8 for a pair of prescription glasses including both the lenses AND the frames. The company appears to be based in California, but that site merely takes the orders and transmits them to China, where the glasses are actually produced.

When I mentioned the place to Jack, he did some searching and found seriously bi-modal reviews of the place. Many people loved them. At the same time, many people hated them. The major complaint is that if the glasses didn't have the right prescription, it is nearly impossible to get glasses with the correct prescription sent in their place; you're just out the money.

Also, they do not produce lined trifocals (though they do produce both progressives and lined bifocals).

Since it is time for me to update the prescriptions in some of my glasses, I decided the potential saving would outweigh the risk of placing an order with them. Also, they charge the same total amount for shipping, regardless of how many pairs of glasses you order at one time. I ordered four pairs of glasses; three different types for me and one for my older son, David Ricardo Palmer. Shipping time was about what they had said it would be — three weeks or a bit less.

1. My son says his glasses are fine. He is not as happy with the style of the frames as he had hoped he would be, and this is one disadvantage with buying glasses online. The site has considerable detail about sizes, colours, and styles, but it is not the same thing as trying the frames in the showroom of an optician.
2. I ordered one pair of glasses with just my distance vision prescription. I refer to these as my "bedtime glasses" because I wear them in bed so I can see the tv, something wearers of bifocals and trifocals cannot do easily because the bottom portion of their lenses is usually for close-up, not distance vision. These glasses were $8, including some frames with spring-loaded temples, and seem just fine. I had nothing special done to the lenses, so these were the very basic model, and they seem like a fantastic bargain. The new prescription is certainly better than the old one that I had been using for over a decade.
3. My intermediate vision glasses (for when I play French horn in the band) are fine, too. The focal point is about 5” closer to me than I might have liked, but that’s a (very minor) problem with the prescription, not the glasses. For these glasses, I ordered thinner lenses, transition lenses (photo-gray) and anti-reflective coating for when we play outside; I also selected some slightly more expensive ($20, not %8) unusual rimless frames. Because I got more expensive frames and extras with the lenses, the price of this pair was about $55. The price for my first two pairs of glasses at even a discount optician in London, ON, would easily have been around $300 - $400 or more. My son's would have been about $350.
4. I also ordered a pair of full progressive glasses, just like the ones I had ordered from a London optician [see my previous posting about shopping for eyeglasses]. As I said earlier, I am not terribly keen on progressives because they have too narrow a field of vision. I ordinarily would get tri-focals, but Zenni doesn’t do trifocals, so I decided to try their progressives. The actual clear-vision “post” is still too narrow to suit me (I have to move my head to read this small computer screen when wearing those glasses), with some intriguing distortions outside the post. But the field of vision with the Zenni progressives is, if anything, a bit wider than that of the progressives I ordered locally. Progressives, transitions, thin lenses, anti-reflective, neato rimless frames - $97. These will become backup glasses.
   
   My local monopolist optometrist would probably charge about $900 - $1200 or more for the same three pairs of glasses; I paid about $170 for all three. So overall I’m pleased. But please note that I have no idea how good the lense material is, and I realize that not everyone has been happy with their orders from that outfit.