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Ask HN: Have you bought prescription glasses online?

3 points by J-dawg ↗ HN
Optometrists feel (understandably?) threatened by the sale of glasses online, and have resorted to withholding pupillary distance (PD) measurements from their patients. How do you feel about this? Have you had good results with glasses bought online? Any good tips or tricks for measuring your own pupillary distance?

I'm hoping the 'has bad eyesight / likes to buy everything online' Venn diagram will have a pretty big overlap here on HN

14 comments

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phren0logy
I bought mine through warby parker, and it was a good experience. I appreciated trying on the actual glasses.

Also, as optometrists are covered under HIPAA, they cannot refuse your request for your records.

J-dawg
I'm in the UK, it seems that here the PD measurement is not considered part of the prescription, and you don't have an automatic right to that information. Personally I still think it's a little unethical on the part of the optometrist to withhold it.
sjs382
Definitely ask beforehand.
mglheureux
Use the power of the free market! Ask beforehand if the optometrist will give you your PD, and if he or she says no, tell the doctor you'll find one who does. No one in business likes losing business for something that is autocorrigible.

That being said: I've ordered glasses (and lenses) from Warby Parker many times and never had problems getting the PD (in the US), although the doctor did try to convince me that buying online is bad for a variety of reasons. I know that WP has some doctors with whom they associate themselves, and so they (or whomever you are looking to purchase from) may be able to point you in the direction of a doctor who is amenable to that sort of thing.

Worse comes to worst, I remember an anecdote about someone walking in off the street to an eye place (in a LensCrafters or similar), and giving the technician a $5 or $10 tip to take his measurements. Works for the same reason: it's business (and money) they wouldn't have otherwise, and they're not looking at it as "losing the glasses sale."

informatimago
I buy lenses online, so there's no PD parameter there :-)
sjs382
I got a prescription at Americas Best and had to ask for my PD, but they gave it without any further hassle.

Before visiting your eye doctor, ask if they are able to provide PD measurements with the prescription. IIRC, some will do it for an extra fee.

ChuckMcM
I've bought glasses online. My optometrist doesn't write them by default on the prescriptions but provides them on request. Of course I suppose she could lie so that "online" bought glasses will not work as well as hers do, but I doubt that.

That said, given modern cameras, even web cams, it should be possible to put a calibration dot on your forehead, take a picture of your face and have the computer figure it out.

Would make an excellent hackathon project.

JoeAltmaier
Its actually illegal for an optometrist to refuse your correct prescription. Fine: $1500 per incident.
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chrisBob
This may be true but I don't think the pupil distance is a required part of the prescription. This measurement is often made at the glasses shop. Since it doesn't require any special knowledge or equipment to make the measurement I don't think it is a big deal.
JoeAltmaier
Right, just look in a mirror and hold up a ruler marked in mm.
rahimnathwani
I have had good experiences with optical4less.com (based in Hong Kong, but ships everywhere) and spex4less.com (UK-based). I've bought ~10 pairs of glasses online.
Lennington
Bought a pair online for less than half the price that the high street were charging. My optometrist gives perscription upon request but PD isn't part of this. I was able to measure the PD myself though (did several measurements using a few different mirrors).

Have been wearing the glasses every day for over a year and they're the clearest and sharpest lenses I've ever had. Don't think I'll ever go back to buying from a store.

[edit] For anyone wondering the methods I used to measure PD, I used a ruler in front of the mirror, a ruler in front of a friend and a couple of online apps like Warby Parker's https://pd.warbyparker.com/ The results were pretty consistent so went ahead with it.