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Ask HN: Where to buy cheap but good quality glasses in Europe?

76 points by tsingy ↗ HN
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?

99 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] thread
timonoko
https://www.favoptic.se/

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
looks like a scam website.
timonoko
You need better glasses.

I have about 30 favoptics.

timonoko
Apropos. I remember one disaster. I wanted "Leningrad Cowboys" wraparound sporty glasses, but they informed that they do not work too well beyond -2 .

I ordered anyways, and they sort-of worked, but while rollerskating all those peripheral distortions threw me of balance and I broke my rib. Money refunded, no hard feelings.

mvdwoord
This is another. Haven't tested myself, yet, not am planning to.

https://www.charlietemple.com/

bouk
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.
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rapsey
Why not just Zenni?
nannal
Because they don't deliver to europe.
nivenkos
And if it gets stopped in customs, the handling fees, etc. will wipe out any saving.
tgsovlerkhgsel
Very dependent on which country you're from and how expensive your order is. Mine tended to be well below the local threshold which means customs can rummage around all they want, it's not gonna cost anything.
rapsey
I don't know where you are from but from my EU country I would pay whatever the tax is and not much else. Still vastly cheaper than anything local.
glogla
They don't? Is that a new thing? I have like four Zenni glasses.
tsingy
How much did they end up costing after border taxes?
glogla
My previous glasses were about 700 EUR from local shop. I got two pairs of Zenni glasses that cost 120 EUR together with all taxes, shipping, etc. This was few years back. I think they didn't end up caught at the border, but if they did, I'm pretty sure I would still fit into like 10x cheaper than local.

Now I'm a special case, due to crazy level of astigmatism glasses were always very expensive for me. For someone with more normal eyes, this might not be worth the hassle - but what I really like the most is that I can have more pairs to wear depending on my mood and if I break one pair I'm not out of Macbook money.

masklinn
I expect they don’t “don’t deliver to europe” but they don’t ship from europe, so you’re rolling the dice on import duties depending on the shipper.
dzhiurgis
They def do, but Lithuania is excluded. I suspect this is due Taiwan issues.

Anyone brave enough to order glasses with Taiwan is a country print?

nivenkos
I used Glasses Direct - https://www.glassesdirect.co.uk/ a few years ago and they were pretty good for the price.

I bought them temporarily but ended up using one pair for 3 years.

ChrisRR
I use them in the UK too. Had 4 pairs from them now and never had an issue

Of course this doesn't help if they're in mainland Europe

iainmerrick
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.

pantalaimon
In Germany two big chains for affordable glasses are

https://www.fielmann.de/

https://www.robinlook.de/

F30
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).
puszczyk
++ 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.
boruto
fielmann is bad if you want to reasonably thin glasses with myopia north of -6.
sparsely
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.

riadsila
I second this recommendation for lunettes pour tous!
1983054105
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.

[1]: https://www.generale-optique.com/

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VPenkov
Charlie Temple are cheap and okayish. If you don't use glasses full-time, they're a good option, otherwise not so much. Or at least this was my impression from 3 years ago.

My partner is a full-time user or Ace & Tate and she's happy with them.

m000
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.

[1] https://www.aceandtate.com/

vasco
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.
s_dev
https://www.selectspecs.com/

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
Well, having around -7 in each eye plus some astigmatism, I define "cheap" anything under €300-400. Lenses get expensive quickly!
gizajob
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.
Semaphor
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.

[0]: https://www.misterspex.de/

rale
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.
Semaphor
Conveniently, I currently have exactly the same frames, so I’ll be able to compare.
RicoElectrico
Would love to hear recommendation for Poland as well. Really don't want pay the Luxotica racket.
te_chris
Cubitts is good for the price - UK based, handmade acetate frames.
walthamstow
Ace & Tate

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
I will second Ace & Tate. I have three pairs, two of which have a clip on. Very happy customer.
OJFord
> Beloved by hipsters all over Europe

They sell frames, but no lenses?

ampham
+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.
jsumrall
Don’t forget all the UK based options now incur VAT costs, so better stick with mainland EU.
jfk13
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.
tmikaeld
I've used Polette two times, both times have been wonderful.

Just keep in mind, most of their glasses are very wide! So check the measurements.

colinjoy
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?
buybackoff
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.

jsmith99
Good lenses are important - I was sceptical but I'm much happier with my Seiko 1.74 double aspheric than with my old glasses which were Specsaver's 1.74 aspherics: flatter front and less distortion and rainbow effects (chromatic aberration). If you have money to burn you can also get personalised 'free form' lenses made using the same machines used for custom varifocals.

However this only becomes important if you have a strong prescription and buying online is dangerous if you have a strong prescription, especially astigmatism. You can send them your horizontal PD but they have no way of knowing the vertical component without seeing how the frames sit on your face (which depends on your nose and ears).

Some of the better online specialists will send you the frame with dummy lenses for you to mark your pupils on with a marker, and you then send them back to be glazed.

Ao7bei3s
More expensive lenses get you:

* 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.

loceng
Is this your field or you just became a bit of an expert through frustration?
Ao7bei3s
Thank you for asking, it brightened up my day.

I am not an expert.

A mix of interest, a compulsion/obsession with learning the basics of anything to make optimal decisons, and get taken more seriously by experts (it turns out all it takes to get your optometrist to take you seriously is to use words like "autorefractor" and "phoroptor"), overconfidence ("I know RF, and light is an electromagnetic wave too, how different can it be?") and I guess also frustration (what do you mean, I need to renew the contact lens prescription every year, I can only be prescribed one type and I need your blessing to try 2-weeklies from the same brand, which you would have happily prescribed instead of the dailies? No thanks, I'll just import them then.)

But really, I've just worn glasses for a long time and nothing I wrote there is actually all that deep. I may have read a few papers.

delfinom
With lenses, yes, higher refractive index, coatings and the like drive up the price. The features are worth it, but some brands have massive margins on what is essentially the same highly automated processes.

>* Lighter, thinner frames and frameless options.

Your average person is not going to feel the extra 5g from a "cheaper frame". Most expensive frames are also hilariously cheap to make at the same factory.

>* 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).

That is buying undersized glasses. The "expensive frames" are just tailoring to people in denial of their head size. Though the other problem is, it's cheaper for a brand to make more of the same undersized frame, and add a spring hinge instead of offering frame designs in two sizes. Economy of scale for stamped process frames.

> * Titanium or memory metals instead of plastic of aluminum.

True titanium is a difficult metal to work with. The "Titanium frames" are largely a scam of some titanium alloy because it's actually usable to manufacture in such small frames. The end result is those frames break all the same.

The biggest problem is titanium work hardens. It is a strong metal but it essentially fatigues and snaps like copper. Make it thin like for glass frames and you allow it to start flexing and work hardening over time. Other applications of titanium don't make the metal thin enough to allow that to happen.

>* "Aesthetics" and minor add-ons like laser engraving.

Yea you pay for the "design". Laser engraving addons are sometimes available for cheap frames tho.

ce4
Yep, seconded.

Some more anecdata: The lenses' coating from my cheap unbranded glasses (plastic lenses) have begun to disintegrate/separate from the glass. My other glasses' Zeiss lenses are fine still (both being 8 and 6 years old).

Other than that, to the OP: get what you like, if you need the super thin lenses (depends on your level of myopia), go with the expensive stuff, else the cheaper lenses will also work. The more expensive coatings will filter more reflections, do you need a polarizing screen (doesn't work well with LCDs though)?. Then there's the lens material: glass (more scratch resistant) vs plastic (safer, because shatterproof). If you need two zoned lenses thats also different, and way more expensive.

Edit: oh and make sure that the eye distance is properly measured (i.e. at all), that is to make sure that the optical center is ligning up with your eye

moooo99
> if you need the super thin lenses (depends on your level of myopia), go with the expensive stuff, else the cheaper lenses will also work.

This also depends on the frame OP wants to go for. With thicker frames, thicker glasses tend to be less of an aesthetic issue than with very light, transparent of frameless designs.

frereubu
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.
AdamGibbins
Where do you find places with specific lenses? Basically nowhere in the UK seems to call out their lense quality from what I've seen - perhaps I'm just looking in the wrong places. Are you ringing each optician up individually and asking them?
jsmith99
The branded lenses are often expensive and therefore high margin, so most opticians will have them available, but few people order them so they are unlikely to mention their existence. As to which are best, you are best finding an independent local optician who seems to have an interest in the subject and asking for a recommendation. If you read the Optiboard forums you can get an idea of the passion some opticians have, although it's not useful for specifics.
frereubu
I don't know unfortunately - I just happen to have used an optician for years since buying my first set of glasses (Schuller Opticians in London) with just two branches, who uses Zeiss.
AdamGibbins
Good to know thanks, I'm in London so might give them a go sometime.
frereubu
They're not cheap, but it wasn't until I tried other options that I realised how lucky I'd been to stumble across them.
tgsovlerkhgsel
I would just go with Zenni, but if for some reason you can't or don't want to:

- Fielmann is likely the cheapest with in-person stores and optometrists, but of course significantly more expensive than the online options. I believe they exist in many countries, although there may be better local alternatives.

- brillen.de and brille24.de are two options that used to be decent, but may have changed in the many years since I used them (especially the former seems to have raised prices significantly). Probably only ship to Germany. One of them also used to offer local service at an optician if you needed adjustments etc.

Shipping times can be long even with "local" online stores because they have the glasses made abroad (typically on the same machines everyone else uses).