so what is the best anti-reflective coating for your glasses in this video we're going to review
and compare the most common types of glasses lens coatings whether you're looking for something with
the best non-glare best scratch resistance or best blue light filter in this video we're going
to break all that down so that you can understand and better figure out what's going to work for you
let's take a look Eyes And SHINE everyone this is dr allen here from the dr eye health show
now today we're talking about eyeglasses and anti-reflective coatings this is part of our
series helping people learn about glasses lenses and really what should work best for
them when they're buying their next pair so if you haven't checked out the other videos in that
series i'll put a link to that at the very top of the video description so you can find all of that
information easily now first off let's just assume that you've never had glasses before and you have
no idea what an anti-reflective is and how that helps you with your eyesight the purpose of an
anti-reflective is to help reduce reflections that come off the front surface of your glasses lenses
the back surface and reduce any internal reflections that could occur within the lens
itself and this helps improve the optical quality of the images and light passing through that
lens this is so important that's why you see it on really high-end fancy camera lenses you see
it on your webcam on your computer and even on the camera lenses on the back of your cell phone
yes they are this important and you can usually see anti-reflective just a little
bit by this little green blue or kind of rainbow shimmer on the front surface of people's glasses
but the benefit of having this treatment is that it should help sharpen your vision without seeing
so much distracting glare it should help you see better at nighttime so you don't see problems
with bright lights coming your way as well as help reducing eye strain to some degree and it
can significantly improve the cosmetic appearance of your glasses because if i switch over to this
pair of glasses that has no anti-reflective you just see so much glare coming off the surface you
can't even identify my eyes or tell if i'm really looking at you and making eye contact but then
if i switch to this pair that has really good anti-reflective you can still see my eyes it's
not as distracting which i think is super helpful for anybody who's in a lot of business meetings
zoom calls interviewing somebody for a job or for just somebody who likes to take a lot of
photos or be on camera videos that sort of thing having good eye contact plays a big role in our
face-to-face communication and you don't want to be distracted by this nasty glitter the whole time
now when you purchase anti-reflective coatings i like to break things down into three different
categories you have the budget or kind of basic anti-reflective that you can get then there's
the high-end or performance anti reflective and then you have specialty anti-reflective coatings
these ones are like specialty anti-scratch lenses or ones that have blue light filters into them
now let's start off talking about standard or budget anti-reflective coatings these will often
be referred to as house ar for anti-reflective coating if you're buying it from a local shop
but there's a wide variety and variability between brands when it comes to these types of
anti reflective again they are budget so they're usually around 50 us dollars and they usually in
my experience have kind of a green or yellow like shimmer coming off the front surface of the lens
it still has some reflectivity to it as it's an older technology compared to the performance
lenses we're going to show you which have really good anti-reflective but they still are
better than nothing one downside to having these budget lenses is that they do tend to smudge and
get dirtier faster because of just the process of which they're made but that's one of the benefits
of going into the high performance types of lenses is that they then start to add anti-smudge
anti-static anti-scratch and other special hydrophobic coatings all bundled into those
high performance lenses now when it comes to the high-end anti-reflective the best anti-reflective
in my opinion that i've been trying out the last few years is the Crizal sapphire 360.
this anti-reflective they used nano technology to help reduce the reflections by an extra
20 30 percent that even light coming in from like obscene angles it reduces that glare such
that while i'm looking here at this bright light that i'm using to shoot this video
you can still see my eyes it's not distracting and because of that reason i recommend it for anybody
who's on a lot of zoom meetings or takes a lot of photos or makes a lot of video content like myself
and i recommend it for anybody who has a really high prescription in their glasses because they
usually are going to benefit from having a high index lens in their glasses and high index lenses
unfortunately have more reflections so you want to have a really good anti-reflective to kind of
combat that now what if you're somebody who is a little rougher with your glasses or perhaps
you're buying glasses for your kids and you just know they're likely going to scratch the lenses
in that case you may want to look into the Crizal the rock this is the new anti-reflective came out
in the last year or so which has superior anti-scratch properties to it these lenses
have a new high resistance technology in them that helps repel dust and prevent scratches
it makes it almost three times more resistant to scratches than just the standard anti-reflective
coatings and because of the same treatment it even makes it easier to clean and this
is one that i usually recommend for anybody who is wearing a polycarbonate or safety lens because the
polycarbonate material is although it's great as a safety lens it does tend to scratch a lot easier
now if you're completely new to buying glasses and you don't know what i mean by polycarbonate or you
don't know what high index lenses are then that's okay i have a video going over lens materials
and i'll put the link to that in the top of the video description again so you can find that in
the whole series now what about blue light and having blue light filters in your lenses
if you're like me you may spend a lot of your time indoors in front of a digital screen and so a lot
of doctors or opticians may recommend they have a blue light filter in your lenses now first off
there's a lot of misinformation about blue light and the true science of how it affects our eyes
if you want to learn more about that i highly encourage you to check out the other videos i've
done on that subject either way having a blue light glasses or a blue light filter is a thing
and if you ever get them you'll notice they have more of a blue or almost purple like shimmer
coming off the front surface and most blue light filters do not block out a hundred percent of blue
light because some blue light is healthy for your eyes and if you blocked out all of it your lenses
would look pretty much dark orange but most blue light filters or blue light treatments
for your glasses such as the Crizal provencia for example block about 20 of the blue light spectrum
one thing i've personally noticed about these types of lenses is that while yes they do filter
more blue light they don't work as well as an anti-reflective they have a lot more reflectivity
off the front surface there are some other options out there to help reduce that such as having
lenses that are specifically designed to have blue light filters built into the lenses themselves
and then they have a really high quality anti-reflective on the surface these may not
be as easily found but definitely ask around to different eye clinics if they have that available
otherwise all of the specialty lenses the blue light filters the rock or anti-scratch lenses
or you want something that's really high-end anti-reflective usually they come in a price range
of around 150 to maybe 175 us dollars extra but again they all come wrapped in with anti-smudge
anti-dust uv light protection all of that kind of gets wrapped up into one all for these products
but hey hopefully this video helped you out in some way if so drop us a comment below
or please hit that like button for us at the very least otherwise if you want to learn more
about different glasses frames classes lenses and you want to see us review several brands in
detail check out our full series by clicking or tapping the screen up over here otherwise
again this is dr Allen here from the dr eye health show keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon