Supporting Your Eyesight: Understanding The Technology Behind Eyeglasses Lenses

Eye issues are becoming increasingly common in the digital age, and there’s good reason for it. Dr. Vincent Moscato from Crystal Run Healthcare explains that prolonged screen time stresses the muscles of the near vision system.

This has led to a significant increase in chronic eye strain, also known as asthenopia. Meanwhile, the phenomenon of reduced blink rate while looking at screens causes eye dryness, as blinking stimulates tear secretion and evenly distributes tears across the eye’s surface. 

Chronic eye strain and lack of adequate moisture can result in impaired vision over time.

These changing vision needs underscore the importance of understanding vision correction tools, particularly eyeglasses lens types.

Each type of lens is designed to address specific visual needs, and selecting the right lenses is a crucial part of protecting your eyesight. Let’s take a closer look at the types of lenses and the technology behind them below. 

Prescription Lenses

Prescription lenses are fundamental for addressing specific impairments such as myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism.

These lenses are meticulously crafted based on precise measurements of the eye’s refractive errors, bending light rays to focus correctly on the retina.

For instance, concave lenses are used to correct myopia by diverging light rays slightly before they enter the eye, while convex lenses are employed to correct hyperopia by converging light rays to help them focus properly.

While prescription lenses are often the basic approach to vision correction, the field is continuing to innovate.

The Krystallizer removable prescription lenses, which were submitted to Invent Help in January 2024, are lenses that can be from one pair of frames to another.

This adds flexibility and saves money by eliminating the need for wearers to purchase an entirely new pair of prescription glasses, whether it’s for sunglasses, designer glasses, or swim goggles.

Recent innovations have also led to the development of high-index plastics and tints, making prescription lenses lighter and thinner.

Polarized Lenses

Like UV sunglasses, polarized lenses protect the eyes from UV damage. However, they are also specifically designed to reduce glare from reflective surfaces such as water, snow, and roads.

The secret to polarized lenses lies in a special filter that blocks horizontally oriented light waves and causes them to bounce off instead.

This is either laminated onto the lens material or embedded within the lens during manufacturing. That is why your vision may look slightly darker than normal while using polarized glasses.

Nevertheless, the filter is ideal for clearer vision in bright, reflective environments. This makes polarized lenses perfect for activities like fishing, skiing, and driving.

Transition Lenses

Also known as photochromic lenses, transition lenses contain photochromic molecules that are embedded during production and change structure when exposed to UV light.

This causes the glasses to darken outdoors when exposed to UV light and become clear indoors when the molecules have reverted to their original structure.

Today, modern advancements in transition lenses include protection against UV and blue-violet light filtering.

The Transition’s Gen S signature lenses from Costa Del Ray also come in 8 optimized colors, so you can add a brown tint onto the Ocean Ridge 800 if you’re constantly on the road or consider a green tint onto the Mariana Trench 400 if your hobbies frequently draw you to open waters.

Otherwise, you can explore gray tints for your transition lenses if you tend to generally move between indoor and outdoor environments.

Blue-light Lenses

Digital screens emit high-energy blue light, which is particularly intense between 400 and 455 nanometers.

Our previous article explained how long-term computer use can lead to significant eye strain and interfere with our natural sleep patterns.

This is often the result of excessive blue light penetrating the eye lens and affecting the production of melatonin, the hormone responsible for regulating sleep.

To address this, blue-light filtering coatings are applied to the lens surface using advanced deposition techniques.

These coatings selectively filter out a portion of blue light wavelengths while you use your devices and are exposed to artificial lighting.

This can now be combined with other treatments, such as anti-reflective coatings, for added benefits. 

There are numerous options to protect your eyesight in the digital age, from prescription lenses tailored to your specific vision needs to specialized lenses like polarized, tinted, transition, and blue-light lenses.

Understanding which lens is the best fit for you is a crucial part of effective vision correction. For more on computer use and technology, check out our other articles on WP Dev Shed.