After reading this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33525673), I felt scammed for buying my glasses for 400 euros, hence the question. The thread talked a lot about Zenni Optical, any other option for EU people?
I've been to Lunettes pour Tous stores https://lunettespourtous.com/ in the past. It felt revolutionary, because you could walk in, get an eye test, and have your glasses made within 30 minutes at the same store, at a very reasonable price.
It looks like they deliver as well. Hard to describe their price range as they have a million options you can pick as part of the ordering process - easy to end up with something well under 100EUR though without picking all the cheapest options.
I haven't tried "Lunettes pour tous" yet but I usually go to "Générale d'Optique" [1] where the basic glasses cost 25€.
Your advice has less shops in France but it seems very interesting and I'll definitely buy from them in the future if I have to. Générale d'Optique has a very restricted choice of frames which is why your link seems better.
What constitutes good quality glasses? Or rather: good quality lenses? The frames are mostly a matter of taste, but for the optical component, is a €150 piece of glass significantly better than a €100 piece of glass? Who has the lead in material science here? Japan, Germany? Any good sources on that topic?
* A material with a higher refractive index (-> thinner glasses) and higher Abbe number (-> less dispersion). Scroll down to the "Optical Glass Selection" in this article for a diagram: https://www.edmundoptics.com/knowledge-center/application-no... - the stronger the prescription, the more it matters, but generally the step up from the cheapest material is much more significant than from the mid priced tier to high priced tier.
* Coatings (anti reflective, anti scratch / oil / water, and for sunglasses also: polarizating, and the tint itself of course, ...). These are all worth it in my opinion. I cannot praise the polarizing coating on sunglasses enough. And the anti reflective coating. "Computer vision" coatings are not useful in my opinion. Mirror coatings for sunglasses are a personal/aestetic choice.
* Glasses for people with astigmatism or with both near and far prescriptions are more expensive.
More expensive frames get you:
* Lighter, thinner frames and frameless options.
* Hinges that open a bit more than 90deg and flex back with a spring, so the temples will adapt to the head better. Better hinge materials (e.g. I've had hinges wear out).
* Titanium or memory metals instead of plastic of aluminum.
* "Aesthetics" and minor add-ons like laser engraving.
Obviously price only correlates with quality, paying more doesn't guarantee getting more.
After going to an expensive opticians for a good few years, I thought I'd get a "fun" second pair of glasses at one of the new optician chains, Ace & Tate. When they arrived the lenses were rubbish quality - I hadn't realised how lucky I was to have used a really good optician from the get-go. When I went back to him, tail between my legs, he explained a lot of what a sibling comment says about lightness, refractive index etc. I have Zeiss lenses in my glasses - if you can afford good lenses, they're absolutely worth it.
Essilor 1.7 aspheric lenses cost me 235 euros each. An alternative is Japanese Seiko and German Zeiss. Essilor is probably the cheapest of them. Good lenses cost much more than a nice Luxottica frame and are covered by insurance in France. A frame is covered by up to 100 euros.
Good lenses are not a piece of glass (very dangerous for eyes) or just a piece of plastic, they have multiple anti-reflection and protection layers and must be very precisely done. High refractive index is also very important for a reasonable thickness at edges. So I would not go for some no-name cheap lenses. Given the math, the price of a frame becomes less important.
I know this isn't a popular opinion on the internet but I don't think Luxottica is a "scam", I think this is just what most people want to spend on glasses.
Your glasses sit on your face, are an integral part of your look, and need to last for a long time while being as clear as possible. People don't want $30 glasses because they're a piece of junk and will break on you when you most need them. You can make mass market glasses for ~$100, but I think most people want a more specialized look to their face. A few hundred dollars just happens to be the sweet spot where people get to buy a product which is purchased infrequently in a store, get a high quality item, and get good customer service/support. It's sort of like an iPhone. People want to pay a premium for a device they use every day for years which will be fast and just work. Apple doesn't have a monopoly, they just provide a better service
I have $30 zenni glasses. I love them. I got some prescription sunglasses too. Best sunglasses I’ve ever owned. I was so mad when I lost them. Then I was like. Bitch, $30 and bought another pair. I’m all in for less than a hundred (glasses, sunglasses and replacement) and could not be happier. My sister needs bifocals and couldn’t afford them. She literally was just going without. I just had her send me her prescription and bought her a pair. You need glasses to see, to live. Making them retarded expensive is a crime. Offering them at an affordable price should be praised and supported.
The thing is, the quality is not that high and the look not that great. It's just extremely well known and you people know what they are getting. If you know where to look and especially if you are willing to go online, you can het the same quality and look for half or a third of the price.
+1 ace and tate. I got my glasses there for around 160, costed extra for me cuz I needed the thinner lens. You can get cheaper glasses though depending on the style.
Ace & Tate [1] are becoming fairly popular across Europe. They go for 110EUR for frame + base lenses. They're also very internet-oriented. You can book an eye-test appointment online. Even get sample frames sent at home to choose from (at least pre-Corona).
Anecdotally, they also seem to have pretty good quality. An optician in a country where they don't operate appraised my 160EUR Ace & Tate prescription sunglasses pair in the 400-500EUR range.
A couple of years ago I was about to go with aceandtate, ended up going with specsavers because they had a thing where you'd get sunglasses with prescription lenses too for free when you bought the normal ones. If you nab some promotion like this it's really good value. Ended up being under €150 total for both pairs (1 normal, 1 sunglasses), and this is with max durable lenses and I'm blind enough that my lenses are also not the cheapest cause they're too fat for that. Was the cheapest acceptable ones I found and they have some that look as trendy as the A&T ones.
Caveat: they stock both Luxottica and non-Luxottica brands. You'll just have to guess which is which based on price and know your prescription already.
I will define cheap as anything under €30. I managed to get three pairs of different frames with three pairs of custom lenses for €55.
Another UK one -- I recently used The Glasses Company and was very happy with the result.
To check the quality, I got good brand-name frames at what seemed like a low-markup price (exactly the same as my existing frames for half the price) and their cheapest lenses, and I'm really happy with the results. I'll probably put in another order with fancier lenses.
Not sure if they are high quality. When I compared sites a few years ago, they were the cheapest
I am really troubled with the cylinder for my astigmatism. Many sites only sell glasses with 2.5 cylinder. Lensbest sold 3 diopter cylinders. The eye scanner at the optometrist said I need a 3.75 diopter cylinder. Although the optometrist said, I still get full vision with 3 diopter.
I wanted to buy cylinder-only glasses for computer work. Because my normal glasses also have spherical component against nearsightedness, but the screen is near enough that I can see everything without that and the correction is only causing eyestrain. But I cannot buy them. The cylinder is too high for the sites, and the local optician said I do not need such glasses
There seems to be loads of cheap glasses websites in the UK that I imagine would post to Europe. I use spex4less.co.uk However in the past I used a similar website and got 3 pairs for about €40, but they didn't have the correct prescription in them, they were generic prescriptions but each of my eyes needs a different strength. Also these websites offer cheap frames, but the dimensions of them are often not very good, ie, their Wayfarers which I wear are nowhere near as good as the RayBan frames I wear, so I ended up buying RayBan frames, albeit at a large discount of around 50% online compared to the high street. If you already have your prescription finding cheap glasses online should be a no-brainer though.
Never heard of Robinlook in southern Germany. I would have said the other large chain besides Fielmann is Apollo (known as Pearle in another European countries).
++ for fielmann, I’ve used them in Poland a couple of times (so possibly they are in more countries as well). Good quality and a decent price. Note they have a lot of options, also including more “designer” frames, which are getting expensive. Their brand frames are good quality though if you can find some that you like.
We used to use Zenni, until they stopped shipping here. More recently, my wife tried https://www.polette.com/ and has been quite happy with the result.
When it comes to frames, you can buy cheaper frames if you don't care about the brand and put whatever lenses you want in them, but you don't want to use cheap lenses, as those don't offer fantastic visual clarity and could even damage your eyesight if not properly fitted.
Some of the online shops that offer cheap lenses, like Zenni won't really be as good quality as some Zeiss ones. It's about a lot more than just the blue filter and how thin they are.
I've ordered a couple from here and they're decent! Make sure you get the slightly better lenses, the cheapest ones are very reflective which is annoying.
I just went to Mister Spex [0], they are more expensive than Zenni, but far cheaper than where I got my glasses before. My lenses at Zenni end up $221, at Mister Spex I paid 285€ (For comparison Optiker Bode: 524€). I paid 115€ for the frames, but that was because I actually liked those, they have cheaper frames going down to 20-30€ as well.
Mister Spex is utter trash, the way they fit the lenses in the frame is atrocious. My gf brought one of their glasses to a third-party optician for repairs, and it turned out they had used superglue to fit the much thicker lenses inside the frame. It was very visible and low quality.
[+] [-] sparsely|3 years ago|reply
It looks like they deliver as well. Hard to describe their price range as they have a million options you can pick as part of the ordering process - easy to end up with something well under 100EUR though without picking all the cheapest options.
[+] [-] 1983054105|3 years ago|reply
Your advice has less shops in France but it seems very interesting and I'll definitely buy from them in the future if I have to. Générale d'Optique has a very restricted choice of frames which is why your link seems better.
[1]: https://www.generale-optique.com/
[+] [-] riadsila|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colinjoy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ao7bei3s|3 years ago|reply
* A material with a higher refractive index (-> thinner glasses) and higher Abbe number (-> less dispersion). Scroll down to the "Optical Glass Selection" in this article for a diagram: https://www.edmundoptics.com/knowledge-center/application-no... - the stronger the prescription, the more it matters, but generally the step up from the cheapest material is much more significant than from the mid priced tier to high priced tier.
* Coatings (anti reflective, anti scratch / oil / water, and for sunglasses also: polarizating, and the tint itself of course, ...). These are all worth it in my opinion. I cannot praise the polarizing coating on sunglasses enough. And the anti reflective coating. "Computer vision" coatings are not useful in my opinion. Mirror coatings for sunglasses are a personal/aestetic choice.
* Glasses for people with astigmatism or with both near and far prescriptions are more expensive.
More expensive frames get you:
* Lighter, thinner frames and frameless options.
* Hinges that open a bit more than 90deg and flex back with a spring, so the temples will adapt to the head better. Better hinge materials (e.g. I've had hinges wear out).
* Titanium or memory metals instead of plastic of aluminum.
* "Aesthetics" and minor add-ons like laser engraving.
Obviously price only correlates with quality, paying more doesn't guarantee getting more.
[+] [-] frereubu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buybackoff|3 years ago|reply
Good lenses are not a piece of glass (very dangerous for eyes) or just a piece of plastic, they have multiple anti-reflection and protection layers and must be very precisely done. High refractive index is also very important for a reasonable thickness at edges. So I would not go for some no-name cheap lenses. Given the math, the price of a frame becomes less important.
[+] [-] guywithahat|3 years ago|reply
Your glasses sit on your face, are an integral part of your look, and need to last for a long time while being as clear as possible. People don't want $30 glasses because they're a piece of junk and will break on you when you most need them. You can make mass market glasses for ~$100, but I think most people want a more specialized look to their face. A few hundred dollars just happens to be the sweet spot where people get to buy a product which is purchased infrequently in a store, get a high quality item, and get good customer service/support. It's sort of like an iPhone. People want to pay a premium for a device they use every day for years which will be fast and just work. Apple doesn't have a monopoly, they just provide a better service
[+] [-] more_corn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pipodeclown|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walthamstow|3 years ago|reply
Beloved by hipsters all over Europe
Free eye test, glasses around £100 a pair
I personally love the clip on shades which have made summer actually enjoyable
[+] [-] stijnveken|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ampham|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|3 years ago|reply
They sell frames, but no lenses?
[+] [-] m000|3 years ago|reply
Anecdotally, they also seem to have pretty good quality. An optician in a country where they don't operate appraised my 160EUR Ace & Tate prescription sunglasses pair in the 400-500EUR range.
[1] https://www.aceandtate.com/
[+] [-] vasco|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s_dev|3 years ago|reply
Caveat: they stock both Luxottica and non-Luxottica brands. You'll just have to guess which is which based on price and know your prescription already.
I will define cheap as anything under €30. I managed to get three pairs of different frames with three pairs of custom lenses for €55.
[+] [-] tecleandor|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicbou|3 years ago|reply
It explains how your insurer or your employer can pay for your eyeglasses.
[+] [-] nivenkos|3 years ago|reply
I bought them temporarily but ended up using one pair for 3 years.
[+] [-] iainmerrick|3 years ago|reply
To check the quality, I got good brand-name frames at what seemed like a low-markup price (exactly the same as my existing frames for half the price) and their cheapest lenses, and I'm really happy with the results. I'll probably put in another order with fancier lenses.
[+] [-] ChrisRR|3 years ago|reply
Of course this doesn't help if they're in mainland Europe
[+] [-] timonoko|3 years ago|reply
They do not have English webface, which is strange, but they do deliver to most other countries.
39€ seems to be the cheapest.
Also bi- & multifocals are crazy cheap, IMHO. But good.
[+] [-] m00dy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benibela|3 years ago|reply
Not sure if they are high quality. When I compared sites a few years ago, they were the cheapest
I am really troubled with the cylinder for my astigmatism. Many sites only sell glasses with 2.5 cylinder. Lensbest sold 3 diopter cylinders. The eye scanner at the optometrist said I need a 3.75 diopter cylinder. Although the optometrist said, I still get full vision with 3 diopter.
I wanted to buy cylinder-only glasses for computer work. Because my normal glasses also have spherical component against nearsightedness, but the screen is near enough that I can see everything without that and the correction is only causing eyestrain. But I cannot buy them. The cylinder is too high for the sites, and the local optician said I do not need such glasses
[+] [-] RicoElectrico|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gizajob|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tepix|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsumrall|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pantalaimon|3 years ago|reply
https://www.fielmann.de/
https://www.robinlook.de/
[+] [-] F30|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] puszczyk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boruto|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jfk13|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tmikaeld|3 years ago|reply
Just keep in mind, most of their glasses are very wide! So check the measurements.
[+] [-] whazor|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erwan577|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbg0|3 years ago|reply
Some of the online shops that offer cheap lenses, like Zenni won't really be as good quality as some Zeiss ones. It's about a lot more than just the blue filter and how thin they are.
[+] [-] mvdwoord|3 years ago|reply
https://www.charlietemple.com/
[+] [-] bouk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Semaphor|3 years ago|reply
[0]: https://www.misterspex.de/
[+] [-] rale|3 years ago|reply