OT: Online opticians

I use Tesco opticians in store. They tend to be very good for the money. Tried all the normal highstreet ones and ASDA. Tesco was best. Haven't tried any online ones though sorry.

I used opticals4less.com to get our kids some prescription sunglasses last summer. Cost £19 per pair delivered as opposed to £55 a pair from our local optician. Arrived inside a week and our optician's opinion was they were just fine.

The nine year old chose bright blue lenses - thinks he's Ozzy :)

Try having eyes where your presecription changes every six months and just the lenses are 130 quid - per eye.

I can usually get a pair of photosensitive glasses made, including=20 testing, sub =A3100.

I guess I'm lucky. Change over 2 years is negligable, but if I'm getting=20 tested anyway and they are getting scratched with age, I might as well=20 change them.

--=20 Carl Robson Audio stream:

I suspect mine would be a bit miffed. OTOH he might think it's trade he wouldn't get anyway.

You want new eyes you do.

He knows what he's doing. My kids are in there every other week getting theirs straightened for free. One of them managed to break a frame after having them for a week - it went back to the distributor as faulty...

He even shortened the legs of both sets of Hong Kong sunglasses for free so they were a better fit.

And that's why the wife and I are happy to continue dropping our 700+ quid a year for our glasses and shades.

I am *seriously* jealous of people with decent eyesight. Having kerataconus which means the surface of my eyeball looks like a relief map of the Himalayas is a definite bummer.

"And how far down the chart can you read with right eye Mr Mason?"

"T"

That's a bugger. There are direct-wavefront measurement, and custom arbitrary surface contact and glasses manufacture now, which give *far* better correction in cases like yours than the conventional focus and astigmatism measurements. Not cheap, mind, and I don't know how many places in the UK can do it.

Cool - thanks for the heads up.

Ophthonix make a range of wavefront lenses and list one optician in the UK on their website.

Cool. Let me know if you find out any more. It's impressive stuff - especially with the contacts. People with seriously bad eyesight were getting rather better than 20/20. The glasses work well too, although obviously don't move with the eyeball, so not as good when looking off axis. At the time I was looking at it, the only place which did it commercially was in San Diego, so not a practical option.

I'll second Optical4less.

Both myself and Katie have glasses from them - at the prices they charge, I even splashed out on some yellow tint ones for driving.

Nice. You ever find yourself on Pat Butchers doorstep wearing nothing but a rotating bow tie?

I said yellow, as in the tint snipers wear, not brahn, as in Frank Butcher.

I may never be able to take you seriously ever again.

Ah. Were we supposed to?

Mock all you like - but have you ever tried yellow tint lenses in less than ideal visibility?

They make quite a difference - not least because they stop you being blinded by oncoming vehicles.

I haven't. I still remember those Ambervision sunglasses that used to be advertised on telly. A bit like those wiper blades that clear rain, snow, ice, mud, s*it, piss, vomit etc. off your screen and are used by emergency services everywhere.

Nobody's ever produced reliable research to prove that they're useful. I'd think such a piece of research would be seriously useful to various people (ie, Govts / Armed Forces / Airlines) and the sellers of tinted glasses...