Glasses Filters, Tints and Protection
To give your glasses even more functionality you can have filters, tints and protective coating applied to them. Filters and tints will help protect your eyes from brighter lights or the eye strains caused by computer and television screens, while protective coatings give your glasses a scratch resistant layer to make sure your glasses are kept in good condition. Different filters, tints and protective coatings are usually applied when you order your glasses, and in the case of filters and protective layers, you wouldn’t even know they are there!
Glasses Filters
The most common type of glasses filter is a blue light filter, these are designed to help block out blue light. The most common cause for blue light strain related issues is computer monitors and television screens. People can often find their eyes begin to feel strained when looking at screens over long periods of time. This is due to blue light being of higher energy than other light types. Sunlight is the main producer of blue light and higher energy emissions; however, these can also be found in a lot of electronic devices.
The blue light emitted from electronic devices is only a fraction of that emitted by the sun, but the amount of time people spend using these devices often mean their eyes are exposed to a large amount of this radiation. Blue light filters in glasses help block out the majority of this blue light radiation before it reaches your eye.
Blue light filter glasses can have a slightly yellow tint to them to counterbalance the blue light, although this is usually unnoticeable. There is some evidence that blue light filtered glasses can help prevent retinal damage which is related to blue light. It must be said that blue light filter glasses will not totally eliminate all eye strain caused by electronic devices, so sufficient precautions must still be taken when wearing these glasses, including taking appropriate breaks.
Anti-Glare Glasses
Anti-glare lenses are similar to blue light filter lenses, they help filter out the higher energy wavelengths of light to reduce the total amount of light that interacts with your retina. By reducing the amount of energy absorbed by your eye, it is suggested that eye strain is reduced. Anti-glare lenses are not only useful for electronic devices but can also help with eye strain when driving at night. The reduction in light energy means the glare from oncoming headlights is decreased, making for a more comfortable driving experience.
Anti-glare lense are great if you have a high index glasses lense as the coating helps eliminate the reflection caused by the index number of these glasses. Read our ‘Know Your Glasses Index’ blog for more information on how your glasses index can change the way you see.
Glasses Tint
Glasses tinting is a more classic way of protecting your eyes from bright lights. The tint on glasses lenses helps filter out some of the higher energy wavelengths of the light. Glasses can be tinted with different colours to filter the light in different ways. This is effectively how sunglasses reduce the strain on your eyes caused by bright sunlight. Glasses can have different degrees of tint depending on their purpose, with sunglasses having a high level of tint while reading glasses and glasses for every day use will only have a low tint.
Some glasses also have a photosensitive tint coating. The level of tint in this coating changed depending on the intensity of light it is exposed to. This is ideal if you often go from very light and bright areas to dark areas where changing between normal glasses and sunglasses would become a problem. Having this photosensitive coating also eliminates the need for having a separate pair of prescription sunglasses.
Anti-Scratch Protection
Anti-scratch protection is a great feature to have on any pair of glasses. This is a tough coating that is applied to the lenses of your glasses which is resistant to scratches. Due to the daily use of most glasses it is very easy to drop your glasses or damage the lenses. This can not only be very expensive but mean that your quality of vision is reduced due to lense imperfections. To keep your lenses looking sparkly bright we would recommend you always try and get an anti-scratch coating with all of your glasses and sunglasses. We offer a scratch resistant coating on all of our glasses in our G2Y Bronze pack and upwards.
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