Colourblind glasses?
Discussion
My father is red/green colour blind and after seeing these glasses online I'm looking at getting him some. Has anyone had any of these, they don't seem too popular in the UK. Only brands I see are Pilestone and enchroma. Pilestone have a UK site, enchroma don't. Any experience or recommendations would be great
A somewhat late reply, but here goes!
I've been wanting to try Enchroma out since I heard about them a few years ago, but even with their 60-day money back guarantee, buying them from the US would be an expensive gamble. However, there is finally somewhere to get them in the UK - Eyes on St Albans. They've only been selling them for a month after trying to get a retail agreement from Enchroma for the past two years, and I only found them through chance after getting pissed off with Google Maps very colour-blind hostile traffic level colouring and searching to find out if they had any plan to fix it. This led to the ColorBlind Reddit where I saw a post about Enchroma glasses being available in the UK.
The first thing to understand is that they do not 'cure' colour blindness. Also, the glasses won't work for everyone and the level of improvement will vary for those where they do work.
I have severe deuteranomaly and the Enchroma test indicated that there was a good likelihood that the glasses would work for me. Although it's a 200-odd mile round trip there was no way I was not going to give them a try.
Jez, the owner of EOSA, is a nice bloke and set expectations right from the start that they may not work. After running me through the colour blindness test again in the shop he then selected the best lens types to suit my colour vision deficiency (there are three types: indoor, indoor/outdoor with a medium tint, and outdoor, which are fairly dark like sunglasses) and took me outside to try them out. I'd set my own expectations very low and the first lenses (the outdoor ones)I tried didn't seem to make a huge difference. However, for the second (the indoor/outdoor) the change was more noticeable. The final lenses (indoor) didn't make as big a difference but were more practical in that they could be worn at night (for driving and not looking like 'that guy' who wears sunglasses at night
)
After being sent off to wander around the Marks and Spencer food hall for a bit to see how I got on with them my brain started adjusting and I was seeing colours I'd had difficulties with more clearly - pinks, purples etc. The difference really was there. It's a big thing to have spent your entire life not being sure what purple looks like and I have to say I may have gotten a little emotional at this point
Long story short, I went back and ordered a set. I need varifocals so they weren't cheap - just under a grand all-in (£695 for the lenses, £300 for the frames), but worth every penny to me. Just got to wait a few weeks for the lenses to come over from the US and then I'm back down there
In the meantime they lent me a set of overglasses to keep me going until mine arrive. Biggest surprise? I can now see that the 'go' signal on traffic lights really is green. Always looked white to me until now...
The key thing to take away from this is that if you're going to buy them for someone they really must try them first. It's not just about which lenses will be best for them, but whether they will work at all.
I will post an update once I have my final glasses
Reading this back it looks a paid advertorial for Enchroma/EOSA
but I'm honestly just a very happy customer!
I've been wanting to try Enchroma out since I heard about them a few years ago, but even with their 60-day money back guarantee, buying them from the US would be an expensive gamble. However, there is finally somewhere to get them in the UK - Eyes on St Albans. They've only been selling them for a month after trying to get a retail agreement from Enchroma for the past two years, and I only found them through chance after getting pissed off with Google Maps very colour-blind hostile traffic level colouring and searching to find out if they had any plan to fix it. This led to the ColorBlind Reddit where I saw a post about Enchroma glasses being available in the UK.
The first thing to understand is that they do not 'cure' colour blindness. Also, the glasses won't work for everyone and the level of improvement will vary for those where they do work.
I have severe deuteranomaly and the Enchroma test indicated that there was a good likelihood that the glasses would work for me. Although it's a 200-odd mile round trip there was no way I was not going to give them a try.
Jez, the owner of EOSA, is a nice bloke and set expectations right from the start that they may not work. After running me through the colour blindness test again in the shop he then selected the best lens types to suit my colour vision deficiency (there are three types: indoor, indoor/outdoor with a medium tint, and outdoor, which are fairly dark like sunglasses) and took me outside to try them out. I'd set my own expectations very low and the first lenses (the outdoor ones)I tried didn't seem to make a huge difference. However, for the second (the indoor/outdoor) the change was more noticeable. The final lenses (indoor) didn't make as big a difference but were more practical in that they could be worn at night (for driving and not looking like 'that guy' who wears sunglasses at night
)After being sent off to wander around the Marks and Spencer food hall for a bit to see how I got on with them my brain started adjusting and I was seeing colours I'd had difficulties with more clearly - pinks, purples etc. The difference really was there. It's a big thing to have spent your entire life not being sure what purple looks like and I have to say I may have gotten a little emotional at this point
Long story short, I went back and ordered a set. I need varifocals so they weren't cheap - just under a grand all-in (£695 for the lenses, £300 for the frames), but worth every penny to me. Just got to wait a few weeks for the lenses to come over from the US and then I'm back down there
In the meantime they lent me a set of overglasses to keep me going until mine arrive. Biggest surprise? I can now see that the 'go' signal on traffic lights really is green. Always looked white to me until now...
The key thing to take away from this is that if you're going to buy them for someone they really must try them first. It's not just about which lenses will be best for them, but whether they will work at all.
I will post an update once I have my final glasses
Reading this back it looks a paid advertorial for Enchroma/EOSA
but I'm honestly just a very happy customer!Gassing Station | Health Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff