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Cost of glasses

As said above, it depends on your prescription, and how thin you want the lenses to be.
My last pair were just under £500 for the lenses (-10, -9.5, astigmatism in both, varifocals, best/thinnest Hoya could do), and that was £140 under RRP.
Thankfully Hoya give 30% off if you buy another pair within a month or so; so my reactolite spares were considerably cheaper.
BTW, I found Hoya lenses suited me better than the roughly equivalent Zeiss.
 
clivem2 said:
High refractive index verifocal (thin) lenses are expensive. A pair of specs with these pre-covid started at £400. £500 is not surprising. Those with simpler prescriptions won’t have come across these thin lenses as their lenses will probably be thin anyway. Breadth of vision is also improved with the better lenses.
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That's right. Even a simple but strong prescription creates a very thick edged lens in even a medium sized frame. It's remarkable how the brain compensates for the extra aberrations of the high index - colours all focus in different places yet the brain puts it all back together correctly (most of the time) :)
 
gavreid said:
brain puts it all back together correctly
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it is remarkable - I wear monovision contact lenses. One for near and one for distance - and my brain sorts it out. Pretty good for all scenarios apart from real close up work
 
James said:
That's one massive benefit of developing cataracts in myopic eyes. The replacement lens can fix distance vision as well as astigmatism.
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I was long sighted with astigmatism and RLE has transformed my vision; can now see better than at anytime in my life.

Perfect from infinity to about 2 metres, the sky at night looks totally different and i'm seeing the landscape very differently.

Close up i'm fine to read dials in the car but need reading glasses for computer and smaller print, demi lunettes on the way i think.

A year ago i realised i was driving illegally.
 
clivem2 said:
I’m not sure what you mean by your lenses were thinned….do you mean the edges were ground down?
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Quoting from my Specsavers' booklet (my source of spectacular knowledge :)), there are 5 levels of varifocal quality, from £39 to £194 and 3 levels of thinning, from £50 to £110. I've always thought that plastic lenses were thicker than glass, even in their standard form, and I was mightily surprised 3 years ago when I had distance spec's (for sports) in plastic but thinned and they were as thin , esp. at the edges (important as the lens gets larger) as my previous high-index Zeiss Titals or whatever.

According to the box ticks on the list, my pair of varifocals were 'tailor made' (penultimate level) and thinning was the top one, which included super duper coating. That lot and the £69 frames came to 3266 with the discount. Of course, I'd forgotten the senile citizens' discount, but even so, I'm surprised new spec's cost £500 plus.
 
Absolutely wouldn’t touch Specsavers. Problems on two fronts really.

One relates to their many dodgy business practices and the other is their competence. They have taken Covid monies they’ve yet to repay in full; implemented wage and staff cuts; actively campaigned to prevent internet selling on the most dubious of unevidenced grounds and yet have been involved in campaigns/research to expand the range of people who can conduct both eye tests and the associated health tests. Essentially campaigning to further reduce their own costs by allowing lower paid staff to do the work of higher paid staff.

How this manifests itself in practice is interesting. They claim to be specialists in many rare eye conditions. Whilst the plural of anecdote is not evidence I can say that they sold me on this and then turned out to not even know the most basic things about either of my genetic eye conditions. It was embarrassing. Then you have the long-standing tales of their prescriptions being inaccurate - an issue which has more recently started to pop up with Boots (I can’t imagine why. Oh hang on) - and the over-selling of varifocals and expensive frames to people for whom the former are wholly inappropriate.
 
My varifocals were £800, but were top of the range Zeiss from an independent optician.

So maybe £650 without the frames.
 
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Most of the cost is the time and expertise measuring and fitting the varifocals to get the transitions in the right place for your needs and to come together correctly at the optimum reading distance. Glass is relatively cheap.

These are by far the best I have ever had, and good value to me.
 
Mike Hughes said:
Absolutely wouldn’t touch Specsavers. Problems on two fronts really.
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Specsavers is a franchise, so I imagine that different outlets can have different procedures/outcomes, albeit conforming to an overall standard. There always seem to be superfluous staff in my branch, either greeting or 'helping' selection of frames, si I guess they're earning a wage. However, their operational and administrative set-up is of no concern; what is, to me, is that I can go and have adjustments, repairs etc. ad infinitum f.o.c., and that I've always, in 23 years, found their service and expertise sufficient not to shop around, as I had done previously for 40 odd years.
 
Specsavers are like Subway; they are everywhere. I've had a couple of pairs of glasses made with them to correct an off-target Lasik procedure in one eye, which I later discovered was actually due to a developing cataract. However, despite so-called detailed eye examination, my local outlet's optometrist did not see that and simply changed my prescription. To their credit, the replacement pairs were free.

Like most things in life, you get what you pay for. Sometimes, you just want a basic sandwich to fill a gap. Specsavers is probably fine for young 'uns with uncomplicated vision correction needs.
 
James said:
Specsavers is probably fine for young 'uns with uncomplicated vision correction needs.
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I have a complicated prescription and my wife has Glaucoma with complex vision needs - neither of us young, and Specsavers have been excellent over many years.

It was them that spotted and supported my wife through her Glaucoma diagnosis, whilst her GP said she had migraine then a brain tumour respectively.....
 
I've worn specs for 55 years now, and over that period I've used Independents(mainly), Specsavers, and Boots.

I've always been happiest with Specsavers spectacles. The way they operate doesn't inspire confidence, but the end result is what matters.
 
gintonic said:
it is remarkable - I wear monovision contact lenses. One for near and one for distance - and my brain sorts it out. Pretty good for all scenarios apart from real close up work
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My brain can't even put together the uncorrected vision of my two eyes. The left eye is normal (or was before presbyopia set in) and the right one is far sighted and astigmatic. My brain mostly ignores the right one, if I close it there's not much difference in what I see. I suppose that means I don't have proper stereopsis.

They don't bother to do any correction for the right one.
 
Dozey said:
Most of the cost is the time and expertise measuring and fitting the varifocals to get the transitions in the right place for your needs and to come together correctly at the optimum reading distance. Glass is relatively cheap.

These are by far the best I have ever had, and good value to me.
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Good value to you is not necessarily the same as good value. Not accurate unfortunately. The measurements can be done by optometrists and others on even less pay and are increasingly automated i.e. point, shoot and then print results. For various reasons I have significant amounts to do with a wide wide range of professionals in this field. The glass is cheap and the cost of measurement is roughly the same and often less. The cost of production has diminished for similar reasons. The rest would be a scandal if there were anyone bothered to research it.
 
I am simply giving the OP factual information. How much they cost and where I got them.

Where can you get them cheaper in St Albans? I know and use the only two Zeiss stockists AFAIK.
 
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