I’m typing this while looking at my computer through my brand new pair of Gunnar Optiks Rx glasses. They were waiting for me this evening when I came home from work.
There’s not much to say yet, I’ll update this post after I use them for a while, but I think it’s worthwhile putting down my first impressions.
First off, my order took two and a half weeks to get to me. Apparently there was some mix-up at the lab and Gunnar received the wrong frames the first time around, so they refunded my $10 shipping fee and tried again. When the glasses did come, it was via 2nd day FedEx but I don’t know if that’s Gunnar’s standard shipping or if they expedited the shipping because of the mix-up.
There are plenty of un-boxing pics and videos available on the interweb, so in DRY fashion, I won’t go into too much detail. Suffice it to say that the packaging is very sturdy and attractive and definitely gives off a very up-market feeling (although the “made in china” sticker on the inside of the pouch/cloth did undermine that a little).
(Very impressed with how good this picture came out – you know I took it myself pointing the camera at the bathroom mirror!)
I think the glasses look pretty good! The color of the lenses is certainly interesting, but I don’t really notice while wearing them. I find myself reminding myself every so often that the world isn’t really this muted (at first things looked yellow-ish but now I just notice that colors are a bit muted).
The glasses are also really light. My regular glasses were the lightest I could find and I paid extra for lighter lenses, but these Gunnars are definitely even lighter. That’s really nice, because at the end of a long day I always feel my glasses weighing my face down.
I’ve worn the glasses for about 2 hours so far: 1+ hour doing normal, everyday tasks (eating dinner, talking to my wife, bathing my son), and a little under 1 hour looking at my computer. I don’t notice any real difference in everyday tasks, although I thought I felt my eyes relax when I replaced my other glasses with these, but that could be psychosomatic.
However, I do notice a difference when looking at my monitor! I’ve got this sort of tunnel vision and everything outside of the current few lines of text has sort of blurred into the background. That could be the time of day and the fact that I’m pretty tired, but I think it has something to do with the glasses because I’ve never noticed it before. And the white background of Windows Live Writer isn’t bothering my eyes, but it’s sort of bothering my sense of style since I’m looking at what looks like slightly green-ish black text on a very off-white background. My dark theme in Visual Studio looks really nice though (but man do I need to clean my screen!)
So far, I’m impressed. Even if these glasses do nothing for my eye fatigue and other computer-related ailments, they are stylish, feel very well made, and are priced in the same range as regular Rx glasses, even less if you’re used to buying many higher-end (fashion-wise, not necessarily craftsmanship) frames.