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Caveat emptor, and all that

A while back I wrote about how we were going to try buying prescription eyeglasses online and saving big bucks. Now I can report: Success!

Oz, my mother, and I all ordered eyeglasses from the same online vendor, Zenni Optical, and we are all pretty pleased with the outcomes. Since the eyeglasses were so affordable, about a tenth of what it costs to buy eyeglasses from an optometrist or eyeglass store, Oz and I have each ordered a few pairs over the last nine months. My mother ordered one pair.

The quality is good for the price. (Though I wonder if some of this "titanium" is really titanium.) Oz and I ordered rimless frames, which are just more delicate than full frames, so we handle them carefully. Oz is hard on stuff, but even his have held up. Oz and my mother wear their glasses every day. I only wore mine in the mornings, and contact lenses for the rest of the day, until a month ago when I gave up the contacts.

The prescriptions seem to be accurate. We haven't had the glasses checked by an optometrist to make sure they're correct, but everything looks super sharp and clear to me.

The anti-reflective coatings are effective and haven't gone foggy.

The photochromic lenses, ordered by Oz and my mother, haven't gone yellow and stopped working. My mother doesn't think they get as dark as regular sunglasses, but she says that she's never felt like she needed them to get darker than they do.

The anti-scratch coatings are awesome. When I was out for a walk yesterday, my eyes started watering and I took off my glasses to wipe my eyes. The glasses slipped out of my fingers and bounced off the concrete sidewalk a couple times before coming to a rest, lenses down, on the sidewalk. Although the edges of the lenses are chipped from that initial bounce, the lenses are not scratched at all. The beauty of cheap eyeglasses: as they were bouncing around on the sidewalk, I wailed, "Wah! Those are my favorites!" as opposed to "Wah! There goes a mortgage payment." I went home, put on one of my back-up pairs, and ordered replacements for $53.

A few things to consider

The information I can give you is entirely anecdotal. Not statistically significant in any way. What are the odds you'll get good glasses? I have no idea.

Be an informed consumer

Research and compare vendors. Read customer reviews. Get all your information together (legible prescription, pupillary distance measurement). Understand the terms of sale (all sales will probably be final, unless the eyeglasses are defective). Understand the technical terms used by the vendor, so you will understand what you are ordering.

Think you have vision insurance?

Your vision insurance may not cover the cost of eyeglasses from an online vendor. Mine won't because I live within five miles of an in-network provider.

Know the styles of glasses that work for you

Get out your trusty ruler and measure any eyeglasses that you especially like or that at least fit well. Use those dimensions as a guideline when selecting frames. If you want to try a totally different style, see if you can try on something similar, somewhere, before you order, or accept the possibility that those frames might not work.

This did happen to me. The cute, narrow frames that are in fashion right now? Don't work for me at all. I have a tall nose and if the pads are adjusted so that the lenses are positioned correctly in front of my eyes, then the bridge rests on my nose and gives me a headache. Also, if you move your eyeballs rather than your whole head when you look down at something close, you will find yourself looking out under the lenses. If your near vision is good, then that might be fine, but if your near vision is terrible like mine, then it's extremely annoying. So I have a pair of very cute glasses that I can't wear. At least I'm only out $50. Not such an expensive lesson, but I'd rather have the $50.

Adjusting your eyeglasses

Be prepared to do this yourself. Use a pair of needlenose pliers or your fingers and be very careful and gentle. Take your time, don't rush the process. If the eyeglasses were a good match for your face, you might not need to make any adjustments at all. Some of the glasses we got, we didn't have to adjust.

Determining your pupillary distance

Pupillary distance is the distance in millimeters from the center of one pupil to the center of the other pupil. This information is used when fitting the lenses in the frames in order that the optical centers of the lenses will be positioned over your eyes properly.

Try to get this done by someone who knows what they're doing. See if you can get measured at your eye doctor's place, or if the last place you got glasses from has it in your file. If you have to do it yourself, google around to see what some different methods are. Any method that you try, take the measurement several times and see if you are at least getting consistent results.

What we did: I held a ruler across my face at about the level of my pupils and pointed a desk lamp at my face so that there would be enough light for the camera. As I looked over Oz's shoulder, he took a photograph (without flash) of me, ruler and all. Then I put the photo up on my monitor and zoomed in to take the reading off the ruler. We took a few such photos and got the same reading each time.

Is buying glasses online the right choice for you?

Only you can make that decision. (i.e., I am just some random blogger writing about a consumer experience, not an optometrist. How much is my information worth?)