I don't think insulting customers is a good way to argue the point.
Gunnar Optiks - Gimmick or Game changer?
- Thread starter Connor@Overclockers
- Start date
I don't think insulting customers is a good way to argue the point.
Associate
Totally fair comment about the staff reviews - that's why I run the forum review sample threads so that you can get an honest opinion from both us and fellow forum members.
Will be speaking to Gunnar about a round of samples for you guys to check out, big fan of getting the community involved as like you said, hard to distinguish when an opinion is truly unbiased.
I am seriously thinking about getting a pair and posting my findings on this forum. My eyes are feeling tired and the slight magnification along with the prismatic effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgPEfIMsHyo coupled with the blue light reduction and contrast effect to make text and the image in general sharper (like why some people turn the brightness down and the warmth up) should help. I bought a cheap pair of blue light reduction glasses off amazaon to try and am sending them back due to the glare. However after a few mins you get used to the yellow tint and then don't notice it.
All the youtube vids (jayztwocents https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuLAhfWPNjI and a guy called oliver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9zxL2DBop4) that I have seen like them .
Associate
I will be interested in your findings and feedback Alan!
Associate
I have done some research into these and although initially do seem gimmicky there do appear to be benefits from having them. I have ordered a pair from OcUK and tell you how I get on. yes I agree about reviews from staff members and hence I will tell you how I get on.
Associate
My order of the GUNNAR interceptor came. This is an actual customer review.
They were well wrapped in bubble wrap. The interceptors are a large frame, which is what I wanted as I didn't want to see the frame enclosing the display. Other GUNNARS can have smaller frames, which I now think will be OK as I have tried a similar (but less expensive pair of computer glasses from a generic Chinese manufacturer) pair on and can see the monitor fine but you do feel more enclosed. The GUNNARS do feel slightly better quality. The lens are plastic and therefore makes the glasses quite light weight which is good when wearing for hours. As mentioned before there is a slight prescription to them +0.25 (which GUNNAR doesnt tell you about) and this is why they probably help when looking at a screen a short distance away - this prescription is so slight it is hardly noticeable - the only way I knew was to hold some small print next to the screen that I would normally have trouble reading and the GUNNARS helped so that I could read it. Also as mentioned before from the youtube video there is meant to be a slight prismatic effect (dipupilar distance of 50mm rather than 65mm in our eyes) - this causes the eye sight to converge and focus on monitors etc a short distance away and has the effect of reducing the need for the muscles in our eyes to constantly cross your eyes (thus apparently further reducing eye strain). However as the lens are plastic the quality of the view is not as good as if it were made of glass. Overall I think that the glasses are actually slightly spoiling the view as compared to my naked eyes (however you should be getting the benefit of reducing eye strain due to the slight magnification/prescription and the prismatic effect).
Note that my eyes are now 50yrs old and although I do have a couple of prescription specs I don't wear them as my sight isn't too bad and distances of 0.5 to 3m should be OK for me.
Also regarding spoiling your vision - I did find that under all lighting conditions (lights on, lights off) that there was glare/reflections on the lenses. The glare seemed to glance across the front, penetrate through the lens, and some of the glare seems to have come in from behind (which should not really be possible).
The lens have a yellow tint. This is noticeable for the first 30 seconds - after that I rapidly got used to the colours and accepted it is normal. Note also that the yellow tint also seems to improve and make it easier to read text and differentiate between similar colours - up till now I liked my moniotr to be bright and white however I have heard that some people reduce the contrast and whitness on their monitors to reduce eye strain and improve the picture. These glasses do a similar thing and perhaps I should try adjusting my monitor without using the glasses. One major benefit of the glasses is to reduce the blue light that: can be harmful to your retina due to the high energy; and aparently it reduces chemicals in the brain that helps you sleep. As yayztwo cents said in his youtube review - we need to wit for 20 years before we will be able to tell if these glasses have protected the retina. As to the sleep thing, I havent really noticed anything major over the past 2 nights.
I have used them with a pair of Logitech and a pair of hyper x cloud II headphones and they are comfortable at first (for several hours) - with my logitech headphones one of my ears did start to get a little sore.
GUNNARS claims:
1 reduce eye strain
2 block blue light
3 sleep better
4 prevent dry eyes
5 reduce glare
After 2 days so far my initial feeling regarding the claims are:
1. yes it does reduce eye strain. After being at work I have come home and been on the computer for say 5 hours and normally my eyes would be getting tired but using these GUNNARS they were noticeably less tired. Also strangely when waking in the morning they also felt less tired and more moist/less dry.
2. block blue light - I cannot comment with any measurements but it does make things more yellow - which can help with reading bright text and sometimes to differentiate between colours etc
3. sleep better - I haven't noticed anything.
4. prevent dry eyes - yes surprisingly it does. Reading GUNNARS blurb wearing glasses basically stops wind blowing into the eyes and helps form a more humid atmosphere between in the air between the glasses and the eyes. You could wear any glasses to get this effect but it does seem to work.
5. reduce glare - it actually makes glare worse as compared to not wearing the glasses
other comments: wearing the glasses and headphones make you feel more cocooned and focussed on the screen and sounds - this was good. as mentioned in other posts you can now reduce blue light by buying a modern good quality monitor. Also modern good quality monitors also claim to reduce eye strain by reducing flicker form the back lighting (this is different from the refresh rate and response time). Instead of buying the GUNNARS you could save the money and put it towards a new/better monitor - however if you do then you may miss out on the reduced eye strain from the lens/prismatic effect, less dry eyes and being cocooned and will benefit from avoiding the glare that the glasses seemed to give me.
The youtube reviewers also seemed to like them in general but they do have their drawbacks. Overall however I will continue to wear them for the near term as I do seem to prefer them. If you do need prescription specs then I suspect that your own glasses could be superior as they: will help prevent dry eyes, and that your lenses made of glass is superior to these, and that you can get your lens coated to reduce blue light etc.
I will give it a couple of weeks and will post my findings again.
They were well wrapped in bubble wrap. The interceptors are a large frame, which is what I wanted as I didn't want to see the frame enclosing the display. Other GUNNARS can have smaller frames, which I now think will be OK as I have tried a similar (but less expensive pair of computer glasses from a generic Chinese manufacturer) pair on and can see the monitor fine but you do feel more enclosed. The GUNNARS do feel slightly better quality. The lens are plastic and therefore makes the glasses quite light weight which is good when wearing for hours. As mentioned before there is a slight prescription to them +0.25 (which GUNNAR doesnt tell you about) and this is why they probably help when looking at a screen a short distance away - this prescription is so slight it is hardly noticeable - the only way I knew was to hold some small print next to the screen that I would normally have trouble reading and the GUNNARS helped so that I could read it. Also as mentioned before from the youtube video there is meant to be a slight prismatic effect (dipupilar distance of 50mm rather than 65mm in our eyes) - this causes the eye sight to converge and focus on monitors etc a short distance away and has the effect of reducing the need for the muscles in our eyes to constantly cross your eyes (thus apparently further reducing eye strain). However as the lens are plastic the quality of the view is not as good as if it were made of glass. Overall I think that the glasses are actually slightly spoiling the view as compared to my naked eyes (however you should be getting the benefit of reducing eye strain due to the slight magnification/prescription and the prismatic effect).
Note that my eyes are now 50yrs old and although I do have a couple of prescription specs I don't wear them as my sight isn't too bad and distances of 0.5 to 3m should be OK for me.
Also regarding spoiling your vision - I did find that under all lighting conditions (lights on, lights off) that there was glare/reflections on the lenses. The glare seemed to glance across the front, penetrate through the lens, and some of the glare seems to have come in from behind (which should not really be possible).
The lens have a yellow tint. This is noticeable for the first 30 seconds - after that I rapidly got used to the colours and accepted it is normal. Note also that the yellow tint also seems to improve and make it easier to read text and differentiate between similar colours - up till now I liked my moniotr to be bright and white however I have heard that some people reduce the contrast and whitness on their monitors to reduce eye strain and improve the picture. These glasses do a similar thing and perhaps I should try adjusting my monitor without using the glasses. One major benefit of the glasses is to reduce the blue light that: can be harmful to your retina due to the high energy; and aparently it reduces chemicals in the brain that helps you sleep. As yayztwo cents said in his youtube review - we need to wit for 20 years before we will be able to tell if these glasses have protected the retina. As to the sleep thing, I havent really noticed anything major over the past 2 nights.
I have used them with a pair of Logitech and a pair of hyper x cloud II headphones and they are comfortable at first (for several hours) - with my logitech headphones one of my ears did start to get a little sore.
GUNNARS claims:
1 reduce eye strain
2 block blue light
3 sleep better
4 prevent dry eyes
5 reduce glare
After 2 days so far my initial feeling regarding the claims are:
1. yes it does reduce eye strain. After being at work I have come home and been on the computer for say 5 hours and normally my eyes would be getting tired but using these GUNNARS they were noticeably less tired. Also strangely when waking in the morning they also felt less tired and more moist/less dry.
2. block blue light - I cannot comment with any measurements but it does make things more yellow - which can help with reading bright text and sometimes to differentiate between colours etc
3. sleep better - I haven't noticed anything.
4. prevent dry eyes - yes surprisingly it does. Reading GUNNARS blurb wearing glasses basically stops wind blowing into the eyes and helps form a more humid atmosphere between in the air between the glasses and the eyes. You could wear any glasses to get this effect but it does seem to work.
5. reduce glare - it actually makes glare worse as compared to not wearing the glasses
other comments: wearing the glasses and headphones make you feel more cocooned and focussed on the screen and sounds - this was good. as mentioned in other posts you can now reduce blue light by buying a modern good quality monitor. Also modern good quality monitors also claim to reduce eye strain by reducing flicker form the back lighting (this is different from the refresh rate and response time). Instead of buying the GUNNARS you could save the money and put it towards a new/better monitor - however if you do then you may miss out on the reduced eye strain from the lens/prismatic effect, less dry eyes and being cocooned and will benefit from avoiding the glare that the glasses seemed to give me.
The youtube reviewers also seemed to like them in general but they do have their drawbacks. Overall however I will continue to wear them for the near term as I do seem to prefer them. If you do need prescription specs then I suspect that your own glasses could be superior as they: will help prevent dry eyes, and that your lenses made of glass is superior to these, and that you can get your lens coated to reduce blue light etc.
I will give it a couple of weeks and will post my findings again.
Associate
I have two pairs of presecription glasses - one for reading which I have only just been diagnosed for and the other pair for long distance (which I sort have needed for a few years but only say 100m or more). Generally in everyday use I don't wear them or need them. I have tried both when looking at the monitor - for me my prescription glasses are no good for the distance to the monitor - say 0.5m. The GUNNARS have a +0.25 prescription in them which should help at that distance and have a slight prismatic effect which saves your eye muscles from crossing your sight to continually focus on this short distance. I think that this will help everyone.
Also if I could wear my prescription specs then unfortunately they do not have the blue light coating on them and I would need to buy a new pair.
Associate
Thank you for your review Alan!
I'm glad that you find the GUNNAR's useful to you, although I must admit, i've not had an issue with glare, atleast, I haven't noticed any glare.
However, this is why reviews from consumers are incredibly useful.
I'm glad that you find the GUNNAR's useful to you, although I must admit, i've not had an issue with glare, atleast, I haven't noticed any glare.
However, this is why reviews from consumers are incredibly useful.
I've been using Gunnar's for a few years now after an illness meant I was unable to look at a screen for any period of time. They helped and continue to help me use my computer for longer periods than I would be able to without. Being no optics expert I can't get technical but the tint feels more comfortable, especially when reading text. Thumbs up here.
Soldato
Exactly what I thought.
Associate
Interesting feedback on the glare Alan, where does the sunlight come from (side, behind you, etc) when you're sat at your computer? What kind of artificial lighting do you use?
Which ones did you buy?
Soldato
Soldato
It's nothing new and not uncommon for that member of staff, i cant understand why OcUK allow staff to insult customers ?, and do they allow that in the shop too ? it's not good .
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Associate
Fair point, well made I thought, though I did read it as being tongue in cheek. Nothing about it only being customers he was referring to either
Guilty consciences or thin skins perhaps?
Soldato
Not really, he's been brought up on his attitude towards customers, from customers a few times. Have a look in the nobelchair Merc thread if you don't think he's talking at customers there and here. Not about being thinned skinned, it's about putting the company across properly and being professional.
Anyway, will be ordering a pair of these for my nephew on the back of Alan's review. Again, thanks.
Anyway, will be ordering a pair of these for my nephew on the back of Alan's review. Again, thanks.
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Associate
As GUNNAR say, It's difficult to stop people from gaming or staring at screens 8 hours + per day but we can help protect your eyes whilst you do
Associate
I got the GUNNAR interceptor from OcUK. They are reasonably large. Just prior to that I bought a cheap pair of yellow tint computer specs of amazon and they were smaller and more like the GUNNAR Enigma - the cheap amazon pair were also fine to look at the monitor but your vision around the monitor is framed by the computer specs frames in this case.
I now wear the GUNNAR interceptors every evening when pc gaming - they are comfortable, the yellow tint becomes routine and usual, and they do stop my eyes from drying out and getting as tired, and the yellowness does actually improve the contrast but the vision is not perfect (it is good but not as perfect as not wearing them) and I do find small glare/reflection.
Associate
It is difficult to quantify the protection, but the GUNNARS should help.As GUNNAR say, It's difficult to stop people from gaming or staring at screens 8 hours + per day but we can help protect your eyes whilst you do
I now use night shift on my ipad for 23hrs a day (on 8am to 7am) also to protect my eyes and help me to sleep and now take the colours and display as usual.
Associate
It's difficult to say exactly how effective the protection is as you would have to add your findings to your review in about 20 years...
Night shift is also set on my ipad, constantly. Does help
