hey what's up? Dr. Joseph Allen here and i've been trying out the new Essilor Transitions
Xtractive new generation lenses for about a month now and in fact i've been using the transitions
Xtractive polarized lenses since about the fall of 2021 and this has been pretty cool for me. i
have always been a fan of transition lenses being that i am somebody who is very light sensitive
but i've never had the chance to experience the transitions extra active lenses before.
so now that i've used them i can say right off the bat i am really impressed by them they can
do a lot of sweet things that i've never seen done with a photochromic lens before
however with that being said they're they're not perfect and there are some things i would
like to see improved upon down the road which we are going to go over but first let's go over
the price. the prices for the new transition xtractive lenses are a little difficult to nail
down just because it depends on where you're buying them from including are you getting a
standard lens are you getting a progressive lens are you getting anti-reflectives all those things
but just to go from like a standard clear lens to upgrading to a transitions lens of this kind
expect it to be in the ballpark of probably around 150 us dollars up to maybe two to 250 us dollars
extra kind of like purchasing an extra pair of sunglasses that you don't have to carry around
with you and the lenses have all sorts of extra protective benefits kind of wrapped up into it.
again all for that extra little price but depending on if you are shopping with some sort
of vision discount plan they may have some sort of extra benefits that will bring that price down
even lower so now a big thing about transition lenses is how they work when they're exposed
to different light levels whether you're outdoors or indoors now most people think of transitions
lenses and how they turn into sunglasses outside and i can tell you the extra active lenses do get
darker than any other lens that i've ever seen in fact at the timing of this video they get darker
than any other photochromic lens at moderate temperatures. you see the warmer the temperature
the faster the molecules in the lens want to rearrange and go back to a clear state so the
warmer the lens when you're outside usually the less dark it becomes but the team at transitions
figured out some sort of a way to tweak their formula in order to fight that bringing the
darkness level of these lenses in sunlight from a class 2 sunglasses lens up to a class 3 darkness
level when in moderate temperatures of around the kind of low middle 70 degrees Fahrenheit level if
you are unfamiliar with the different classes of sunglasses grades usually most sunglasses that you
find on the market are going to be between grade 2 and 3 in my experience with grade 3 being a little
bit darker there are class 4 sunglasses lenses which only transmit about three to eight percent
of light but they are usually harder to find and most of the time people don't wear them because
when you do get that low of transmittance it gets much more difficult to see and function in just
regular daily activities but the fact that the new extra active lenses do get to that class three
mark which again is similar to most regular type of sunglasses lenses that i own because i am light
sensitive it's it's pretty cool now another cool thing is that these lenses also filter and absorb
light when you're in doors such as right now because they are extra active they do have a kind
of a subtle tint to them now part of that could be because i'm sitting right next to a window
here with some light coming through but overall i can tell you that i don't really notice too much
you can tell me in the comments section if you can kind of notice that these lenses do have a little
bit of a tint to them right now but i can tell you just from my point of view looking through
the lenses you don't really notice that big of like a brightness difference it is kind of there
but it's really minimal and i feel that once you are wearing them for more than like five minutes
your brain sort of adapts to it and you don't really uh you're not super aware that there's
a little bit of a shade on there but i think that little tint can be really nice for people
who are very light sensitive like myself even to indoor lighting such as lighting at any sort
of department store or such like the bright lamps that are in my new apartment those things are just
insanely bright or if you're bothered by bright screens on all of your digital screens like on
your computer your phone and things like that i think this little tint can help there too in fact
the cool thing about these extra active lenses is that they not only block hundred percent of uv
light when you're outdoors but they filter up to 34 of blue light at the wavelengths of about 380
to 460 nanometers of light which is like the really intense blue light it filters up to 34
percent when you're indoors and it can filter up to 90 percent of that blue light when you're
outdoors which is really important considering the most intense blue light that you'll ever be
exposed to comes from the sun so again you're not just protecting your eyes from uv light but you
are filtering blue light to some degree now the next big question is how long does it take for the
lenses to change whether that's going from light to dark or going from dark back to light when you
come indoors i know from just reading their white papers this new generation is supposed to be 35
faster in changing but in mine and your personal experience if you already pick up a pair of these
it does largely depend on temperature now here at this time in Minnesota where i live it's
pretty cold out it's about negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit on the day that i'm shooting this video
it is freezing out it's like negative 10 with another negative 20 wind chill but it's still
they are extra active lenses and i clocked them in at changing to almost completely dark in less
than a minute outside and these things do change really fast even in really cold temperatures and i
absolutely love this and need this being that i live in Minnesota but of course the downside again
is when you go from being outdoors back to indoors because even with the temperature change going to
warmer indoors it still takes i clocked in over about five minutes to start changing back to clear
again however i do want to mention although they will likely remain looking darker on you for a
long time when you come back in visually when you experience it through those lenses it's really not
that bad assuming that the lighting and wherever you're moving into the lights are on or you're
able to turn them on pretty quick i mean you can see through these lenses even though they look
like they're still pretty dark in fact for someone like myself who is very light sensitive this in
fact helps me a bit more when i do transition from that outdoor into indoor for my eyes and my vision
to kind of acclimate to the brighter lights but i know for a lot of people this this time
between changing is a bigger deal so i wanted to at least kind of go over how that works with these
now since it is so cold here in Minnesota i wanted to kind of clock what it was like at more moderate
temperatures so in the clinic i activated our uv meter it's about 70 degrees here in the clinic and
i'll say it turned dark almost instantaneously it seemed like probably less than 30 seconds and then
to turn back into clear again it did take longer i would say it still took somewhere between that
kind of three to five minute mark before they even started becoming a little bit more clear
now another big selling point for these types of lenses is that they do activate when you are in
the car most other types of photochromic lenses don't work in the car because the car windshield
has a uv light blocker in it but because these extra active lenses they do absorb more different
wavelengths of light they do still activate now previous generations of the extra active lenses
they got darker in the car too but they only got to about a class one darkness level where
the newer lenses because they do activate so much better these ones go to a class 2 darkness
which is about the level of most lighter tinted sunglasses but just for comparison
i tried to hold up both the fully activated lenses when i was in the car in direct sunlight compared
to a more dedicated class 3 lens and you can tell there's just a subtle difference between those
sunglasses and the transitions extra active but i find them very close no i do really like that they
do change and i can tell that they change in the car however again because i am so light sensitive
i will be honest i still personally often change to a dedicated pair of sunglasses when i'm driving
in daylight however i have been caught a few times without my sunglasses with me and i have
been pretty happy and thankful that i did have at least these transitions extra active because then
they did change but that would probably be one of my biggest critiques and something i would still
love to see better in the future is that i would like to see these lenses get even darker when
you're in the car i understand that's a tall order right now but uh they've made it this far
with the technology i'd love to see them push it a little further now because i do have other pairs
of transitions namely the generation eight lens that i used in a previous review a few years ago
just to have that comparison of the transitions extra active new generation versus the gen 8. i
try to put a couple of side by side comparisons here both for clarity indoors you can see that
little bit of a tint with the extra active lenses as well as how dark they get outdoors
certainly right now again keep in mind the temperature but then also how dark they get
in the car so clearly i think you can usually tell the differences between these comparisons but let
me know in the comments section what you guys think comparing these uh with the extra actives
do you think extra active lenses are really kind of a cool thing something you're interested in uh
maybe not maybe you've had other photochromic lenses before and haven't had good success
either way let me know what you guys are thinking are extra active or transition lenses
uh something for you or not i'd love to hear you guys thoughts overall from my personal review i
do really like these in fact these are the lenses and frames that i'm wearing most often in the last
month or so i like that they do get darker again i am light sensitive and i do like even that little
subtle tint you get when you are indoors again personally because i am so light sensitive i
do wish again they would get just a bit darker i even think that if they could get to that level 4
darkness when outside i'm one of those people that would like that and again same thing in the car
it's great that they do get darker again getting to that class 2 is pretty impressive
but i still would like it to get a little bit darker as far as the time change i know again that
may be more significant for some other people for me though again because looking through the lenses
it doesn't seem as dark as what they appear, it doesn't really it's not a big factor for me the
only other slight criticism i would give is that these ones that i've experienced these
are the graphite green lenses and i'm a little disappointed that they're not more green i do love
gray i love brown but i've always loved green just a little bit better and i would like it just to
be a little bit more green now i do have the new Crizal rock anti-reflective on these lenses which
does have a little bit of a green hue reflectance off of it so it kind of makes up for it but still
again i'd just like to see more colors but perhaps with more style meters and things down the line
we'll see some things come out over maybe the next few months or years otherwise thanks so
much for watching hit that like button for me if you learned something new subscribe if you're new
to the channel otherwise again Dr. Allen here keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon