Gunnar Glasses from episode 320

I listened to the latest [I think] episode and you guys mentioned Gunnars gaming glasses. I don't have Gunnars, but I do have a personally made pair of computer glasses with a yellow tint. I basically showed my optometrist the Gunnars website, told them what I wanted, and they did the rest. They just recommended what is now know as computer, or office, glasses but I insisted that they give it the yellow tint as well. Just to be clear, these glasses are based off of my prescription as well. Anyways, I love them! I am not going to say that they make me play games any better or that crap, but they are very comfortable for those of us that are at a computer for 10+ hours everyday. I highly recommend them, even if you have to shell out the extra money for them. They are worth every penny and I have had them for about 8 months. I am also like the guy (sorry I don't recognize voices on the show yet) whom was wearing the Gunnars because cannot wear contacts, except to exercise and my astigmatism leaves me out of the option to get lazer eye surgery. So if they helped me, I am willing to bet they could help a lot of you. (I'm not affiliated with Gunnars or any other optometry business. I am a programmer). As a measuring point, I had to use eye drops every hour or two because my eyes were so dry (or strained/irritated). Now since I got computer glasses I use eye drops maybe 1-2 times a week, if that. I honestly don't know where my eye drops are now and they used to never leave my side.

That was my opinion. Now I am going to share some of the research that I did on these gaming/computer/office glasses that seem to be the new hype.

First, I will start with the yellow tint. The reason for this is two-fold. The tint does make small details slightly crisper (yellow tint is used for hunting glasses as well I think), although you will not be able to see the 1px-sized finger of your character on your 1080p resolution monitor. Along with that, it filters some of the light out from the monitor and makes the transition between high contrast colors smoother. You might have heard before that your monitor should not be the brightest light in the room, or had that feeling of being blind after long periods on the computer. Part of that is due to the brightness and contrast of your monitor. With flashing lights, animations, contrasting colors, etc., our eyes are constantly trying to re-adjust themselves to get the proper lighting. That makes them tired and then when we are 50 we go blind! Ha. No really but it is bad for your eyes. So if the contrast is less and the monitor a bit dimmer, then our eyes don't need to work as hard to maintain the same diameter to let light through (Google eye stuff on your own time, I'm not an optometrist).

Secondly, any sort of prescription glasses have a single focal point (the point where your vision is the best). Please ignore bifocal glasses because if you are wearing them, you probably shouldn't be on a computer. Kidding aside, most prescription glasses have a focal point that is far enough for you to read a sign across the street without a problem. Reading glasses are the opposite since they have a focal point about a foot or two away from your face. Unfortunately, if you combine those two focal points, there is a large gap from about 2-25ft that glasses just don't cover perfectly. Guess what, computer monitors tend to be right in that rang at 2-4 feet away from our eyes. So what my personal optometrist did was make glasses that had a focal point at that range. As far as I know, Gunnars doesn't change the focal point, but I could definitely be wrong. All of my research done on this is almost a year old.

Anyways, I just wanted to share my opinion and knowledge on the subject because I have had great success with what I would call computer glasses. Enjoy, and keep up the great podcast! I really enjoy it!

ingshtrom wrote:

Unfortunately, if you combine those two focal points, there is a large gap from about 2-25ft that glasses just don't cover perfectly. Guess what, computer monitors tend to be right in that rang at 2-4 feet away from our eyes. So what my personal optometrist did was make glasses that had a focal point at that range. As far as I know, Gunnars doesn't change the focal point, but I could definitely be wrong. All of my research done on this is almost a year old.

Interesting - definetly something to talk about with my optometrist when I'm due up for some new lenses I think.

Also note that most non-polarized ski goggles are yellow tinted. One a bland, grey day, that yellow makes all the difference on the snow for finding the tiny bits of contrast.

Pirate Bob wrote:

Also note that most non-polarized ski goggles are yellow tinted.

Sorry, gonna have to call shenanigans on that. Yellow has its place but it's not the automatic goto outside of polarized. As someone who over the last >10 years has invested waaaay too much into sport glasses and goggles, yellow isn't my default lens. They definitely are great in low light situations for improving contrast, but out of my four non-polarized goggles I don't have a single pair of yellow lenses and don't see myself ever wanting a pair. Sienna is my "all-around" tint of choice for snow. I do love yellow tint for sunset or total overcast mountain biking though.

Copied and Pasted from my post in the actual podcast thread:

Just now caught the podcast today, and just popping in long enough to back up Rob on the Gunnars. I took a flyer on a pair a while back based on some moderately convincing testimonial from an acquaintance that sounded a lot like Rob's did on the podcast.

For a long while I'd been getting headaches whenever I played games that tended to keep my eyes moving from spot to spot on the screen constantly. This meant FPS games and any faster tempo RTS games (like my never to be challenged favorite Starcraft 2) would hit me pretty hard after about maybe an hour.

At first I just took to stopping whenever it was opportune and looking out my doorway and down the hall and just focusing on something as far away as I could for a minute, and then sitting back and kind of letting my eyes unfocus and chill for another minute after. That helped things some, but basically only delayed the headaches by maybe half an hour or 45 minutes or so. I found that no matter what I couldn't seem to rest my eyes enough to really make up for all the staring at the monitor.

And mind you I've already done everything else there is to be done. I tweaked the brightness down on my monitors as low as it can be set without sacrificing picture quality, I bought strips of colored LED lights and mounted them to the backs of my monitors to ease the eye strain that goes with staring at a screen in a dark room, if there's a way to help ease eye strain I had already done it.

So with all that effort already put in and the headaches still getting at me (just a little slower than they used to) I bought a pair of Gunnars.

And they just f*cking work. I haven't had a headache while gaming since, including a couple of multi-hour sessions on FPS games in the last couple months.

So while their marketing may be absolutely ridiculous, there is at least SOME merit to their products for some of us.

I am not an optometrist, but I reccomend that geezers with jobs get computer glasses. As mentioned above, you can get the correction appropriate for the monitor distance which will lessen eye strain. Intermediate distancecorrection is also available with trifocals and progressive lenses, but most people prefer single vision lenses.

When you doctor starts talking about presbyopia, it is time to consider computer glasses.

Tint really is largely cosmetic.

Another thing to keep in mind is just to keep your glasses (if you wear them) up to date. I don't have that bad of a prescription, but my astigmatism is baaaad. I got some new [regular] glasses for long distance and those reduced eye-strain for me a well. This is compared to my old lenses. My "Gunnar"-type glasses are still top of the list for computer use.

So, I'm already a 4-eyes (very short sighted in one eye, fairly short sighted in the other). I work as a professional PC-jockey. Never really had any issues with eye-strain.

My question is - do regular ole prescription specs go some way towards giving the same benefits that my 20-20 sighted brethren get from something like Gunnars?

Jonman, I think for cases like yours where you're already wearing other glasses or contacts it's probably better to follow the OP's route and go through an optometrist and get some computer glasses made specifically for you.

But then, if you already aren't experiencing any eye-strain or other issues, I'm not sure I'd bother. It sounds like you're already fine. Seems like it might be a waste of money.

Thin_J wrote:

Jonman, I think for cases like yours where you're already wearing other glasses or contacts it's probably better to follow the OP's route and go through an optometrist and get some computer glasses made specifically for you.

But then, if you already aren't experiencing any eye-strain or other issues, I'm not sure I'd bother. It sounds like you're already fine. Seems like it might be a waste of money.

Well, having been bragging about how awesomely strong and immune my eyes are, turns out I spoke too soon.

Been dealing with eye strain and the occasional headache after a full day in front of a computer recently, so I'm considering taking the plunge on some prescription Gunnars.

Got an eye exam (which I'm due for anyway) scheduled next week at an optician that stocks Gunnars, so I'm going to talk to the nice lady with the expensive degrees about them while she shines lights into my eyeballs.

I'll be curious what the optometrist says. The response I've heard that they apparently give most often is just "They can't hurt".