Today we have different technologies to measure and produce different lens designs for eyeglasses. If you ask yourself what is the most accurate you are exactly in the right place. There is no answer to this question so grab a coffee and I will give you inside information about the lens technology available.
The right and most accurate prescribed lens power is the one that produces the best results for the wearer of the glasses. This can be done with a:
- Conventional lens designs
- Freeform lenses
- Aspheric lenses
- Multiaspheric lenses
- Added as worn parameters like vertex distance, pantoscopic tilt
- Biometrical data like the topography
- Wavefront technology
What Lens Technology produces the Most Accurate Eyeglasses?
All those eyeglasses are fitted with a certain pattern in mind which would theoretically produce the perfect prescription. But there are a few things to consider here. The lenses with the most complicated lens designs are oftentimes referred to as HD lenses or the most accurate ones. But this does not resonate with 100% of the wearers. Some people just can not tolerate those lenses and a simpler lens just works fine for them. So isn’t the simpler lens design the more accurate in such a case? Probably! But why?
When the optician or optometrist measures your prescription he or she will fine-tune lens powers so you will see things clearly. This approach works very well with most people. But in some cases, the approach needs to be changed to produce a more accurate prescription let’s say to a specific environment like driving at night.
When you have a closer look at the eye you will notice the dynamic nature of the eye adjusting the iris diameter to the lighting around you. On top of the iris is your cornea which ideally would have the same curvature in front of the pupil so the optician would have an easier job finding the right lens for you. But in reality, you will find a curvature that changes slightly on the surface of the cornea.
So when the pupils are very dilated at night you might need another power profile for correcting your vision in the lenses as you would with a smaller pupil size in the daytime. Usually, the standard measurement fits both but sometimes multiple measurements need to be done under changed conditions to find the most accurate prescription for the specific purpose.
One way to make things better and improving aberrations is to implement the shape of your eye into the calculations for the lens design. While I personally like this approach think for a moment what this approach produces.
It produces a lens that is fine-tuned to a shape which when slightly moved or rotated produces errors and aberrations. When you look at the eyes they constantly move. Even when you think you are not performing any eye movements you still do. With every slight rotation, the prescription becomes less accurate.
When the tear film is not in the best condition when the measurement was done for such a high-tech lens the prescription will deviate from your optimum. The changes are small. And still, I think a lot of the achievements in fine-tuning the lenses have their place. But when the person would never see a difference between a simpler lens and a high-end lens like the ones in the progressive lens line ups from Rodenstock, Essilor or Zeiss?
I tested most of the high-end lenses on the market. In some cases, I visited the headquarters of some of the manufacturers of the lenses I tested because sometimes the newest lens technology is just available with certain measurement tools. Here below you can find some reviews.
Hoya, Essilor, Shamir, Zeiss, Rodenstock, Novacel, Leica, Seiko
You can read more about the differences in lens designs here where I compared them in depth.
In this review, you will find a subjective note to every lens design I tested and in the in-depth comparison a more objective approach to see the clear field of view side by side. But the kicker for you as a consumer who wants to know what the most accurate lens technology is.
After reading all this article you will still not know until you tried the lenses yourself. There are some lens designs I personally would not choose. But some of my customers say those designs I personally do not like deliver superior performance in regards to the field of view or just the visual comfort in general.
When I compared the different manufacturers side by side I did this in the frame, ordered multiple times gave the lens manufacturers the same prescription, and made sure they were fitted into the frame in the same way. This is a comparison you will probably not have.
For me, it is my daily business to find the lens technology that will work best in the needed setup of my customer. Let us the prescription is a little higher like +5 dpt and my customer chose a frame that sits heavily tilted in its face. Here it would lead definitely to a better visual experience when the free form lens technology would be used so the heavy tilt (as worn parameters) would be used for the lens calculations.
But when the chosen frame is not heavily tilted and it absolutely matches every standard parameter in regards to how the glasses fit in your face then you will notice no difference whatsoever. Because the simpler lens technology also head to be optimized for some parameters and when they just match up perfectly with the simpler lens design then both the high-end lens designs as well as a conventional lens design will produce the most accurate visual results.
So Sometimes It Does Not Make Sense to Use the Best Possible and Most Pricy Lens Technology?
After the consultation and having a closer look at the eyes of my customers I talk to them about what I think is best for them Some times I talk too much about lens designs and then they ask me if in their case they should not choose the most accurate or best lens tech out there. And sometimes I reply. Yes, exactly.
There are several factors that manipulate the outcome of the visual perforce with your glasses. While with progressive lenses it generally speaking makes a difference to use as worn technology as this study shows it could make no sense whatsoever to apply certain use certain tech in your individual case.
I will give you an example here. I have a customer who wanted a lens design with wavefront technology whereas I said the surface of the cornea gets measured. But he had dry eyes and some irregularities on his cornea that produced fluctuations in his prescription.
I told him the lens design made no sense because the lens will be optimized to some parameters and when those change why should he pay for something that will change with every blink. Due to the different surface wetting which induces a slightly different change in the needed prescription.
So this approach of selecting lens technology is very individual. More data, talking to the customer, and the experience of the optician will make a difference. Without the proper consultation and measurements. Nobody can say what the best technology would be. This is also why I always find it funny when a customer comes in and asks “hey optician this is my RX what do you recommend?” Because at this stage I have no idea what could be best.
After an appointment and the gathered data, I will exactly know what I will recommend. But there is still a component I can not control as I described above. When in some cases a lens design just nor worked well with a person. But this seldom happens.
I wish you a great day.
