Digital lenses. New tech to print custom freeform lenses to fit your exact refractive pattern.

Read on for all the wisdom you want on this topic. And if you haven’t heard of these latest (kinda cool?) digital lens shenanigans, hold on to your horses right meow.

First of all if you don’t know, let’s quickly run down how traditional lenses are manufactured.

Traditional Lens Manufacturing

Lens Blank Preparation: Traditional lenses start with glass or plastic slabs that are cut into blanks using glass saws or slitting disks. These blanks are then shaped into rough forms through heating or pressing in molds.
Grinding: The lens surfaces are ground using a series of standard grinding tools. This involves generating the basic lens curvature with progressively finer abrasives until the desired shape is achieved.
Polishing: After grinding, lenses are polished using a mixture of abrasives, often in a slurry form, to remove any imperfections and achieve a clear surface finish.
Coating and Final Adjustments: Similar to digital lenses, traditional lenses may also receive coatings for enhanced durability and performance.

Simple stuff, been that way forever.

Now though, there is “digital”.

Digital Lenses Manufacturing

Here’s how them shits are made:

Prescription and Eye Measurement: Digital lenses begin with a detailed eye examination, where specialized technology scans the eyes to collect precise data points. This data helps determine the exact prescription needed, accounting for individual refractive errors and the unique shape of each eye.
Frame Fitting Measurements: Measurements are taken to assess how the chosen frame fits on the face, including head tilt and the distance from the eyes to the lens. These measurements ensure that the lenses will provide optimal visual clarity when worn.
Digital Surfacing Technology: The order is sent to a lab where a computer-controlled free-form generator creates the lenses. This machine uses advanced algorithms to customize the lens surface according to the specific prescription, allowing for adjustments that enhance visual performance across the entire lens
Lens Generation: The rough shape of the lens is generated using a diamond-tipped tool or laser, which removes material to create the necessary curvature for the prescription. This is followed by fine grinding and polishing to achieve a smooth surface
Coating and Quality Control: After polishing, various coatings (like anti-reflective or scratch-resistant) are applied. Each lens undergoes quality checks to ensure it meets optical standards before being packaged for delivery.

Also can we just stop for a moment and ask, why and who makes these ads?

Seriously.

Somebody scripted that, hired actors, produced it, got it approved, and got it put online. Without anyone at Zeiss blinking a proverbial eye. Do you look at that ad and go well gee golly gosh I dance and vaccum while my husband stares on in abject wonder and slowly dawning consideration of a mental health intervention. I should get me some d’em Zeiss digital progressive lenses.

Sonnnnnnnn.

Is a Zeiss ad what this article is about, Jake, you’re thinking. It’s not is it.

It’s not. This article is about why digital lenses are the latest bit of well intentioned f*ckery that will screw up your eyes even more than the traditional nonsense of selling you glasses for nearsightedness.

Quick note, digital lenses exist as progressive type lenses (varying focal planes for near and far vision) as well as single vision lenses. We’re mainly talking about single vision lenses here, since we generally don’t recommend progressive lenses at all.

Why Digital Lenses Are A Bad Idea

Yes indeed why, you ask?

I’d like to point the jury to the following (and previous) statement:

Digital lenses begin with a detailed eye examination, where specialized technology scans the eyes to collect precise data points. This data helps determine the exact prescription needed, accounting for individual refractive errors and the unique shape of each eye.

Yea that’s not ideal at all.

First let’s consider how your vision works.

The way vision works (jaaaa) is starting with a rather imperfect set of eyeballs, which direct the light through the cornea and the lens onto the retina. Which is where the brain part starts, sending two upside down and left/right switched messy visual signals to the visual cortex.

Which then goes, hmmmm how to make sense out of all this, for the rest of this meatbox brain.

The visual cortex has ‘map’ of sorts, of the visual signal it expects. Flaws and all, flaws in particular. If you go changing these flaws, or remove them, then you’re re-training the visual cortex to a new map.

When you take off ‘traditional’ glasses, you’re more or less just changing how far away blur starts. Not accurate this statement if we get into details of optics and whatnot, but close enough for this. Unless you have astigmatism and different diopters in left and right eye, and nevermind the curvature of lenses and optical centers.

Barring the details, a traditional lens doesn’t change the specific details of the visual signal to nearly the same degree as a freeform digital lens does.

Which is cool … if you never plan to take them off.

But if you do, then you have your brain having to deal with a much more different ‘map’ than you would have using old school non-digital glasses.

The level of dependence, of addiction so to speak, to digital lenses is much much higher than traditionally surfaced lenses.

Digital Lens Cost Comparison

Let’s start with an AI answer to prices:

Traditional Lenses: These are typically mass-produced and can range from $10 to $700, depending on the type and retailer. Basic single-vision lenses average around $114 without insurance, while progressive lenses can cost between $85 to $600 or more when factoring in additional features like anti-glare coatings.
Digital Lenses: The price for digital lenses is generally 25% to 30% higher than traditional lenses. For example, a basic pair of digital lenses might start at around $380, compared to about $120 for traditional lenses.

Bla bla. If we read between the lines, here’s the facts:

You can buy traditional lenses, wholesale, for about $5 a pair for high quality stuff.

Or you can buy digital lenses, for whatever in the insane hell they will charge you. Yes, like $400 to $500 dollars and going up from there, depending on how hard they can sucker you.

Hell of a business model.

There you go. Figure that nobody else on the Internet (or off it) will tell you this. Or probably know this, unless they read me explaining it. Because this is the place to fix your eyesight, the only actual real eye guru destination, where we combine science and biology and some bearded wizardry all into a concoction of sanity and answers.

You don’t expect people to read this and agree Jake, you’re thinking.

I’m not. I’ve given up long ago on assuming that people recognize what’s going on.

The Digital Lens Trap

Also and with all this, now you can’t just buy glasses online anymore. Or go to any ole optic shop and negotiate a deal. Oh no. Now you’ve got your whole custom setup and you will be spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars to get glasses that don’t make you dizzy and feeling ill (all that custom freeform design, means custom focal plane). They got you this time, really locked in to their glasses.

You don’t need digital lenses. You don’t.

You don’t need glasses at all. Or rather you didn’t till you set foot in the retail optometry shop and they got you hooked on that first pair. Now they got way cooler tech to hook you much much harder.

So what’s the verdict? Marvel at digital glasses tech. It’s super cool.

Then walk away.

And also just because, I made you a little visual summary of all this.