The frame of my glasses broke yesterday. I already have another, empty frame and a prescription for new lenses.
When I get new glasses, my eye doctor sends the prescription and a new frame off somewhere, and in a week or two (I don’t really remember), I have new glasses. But right now I can’t wait that long.
I know that LensCrafters used to advertise (and still may, I don’t know) that they’d make glasses “in about an hour.” I know that many WalMarts have glasses stores. I think there’s another chain called Sterling Optical.
What worries me is that some of these places may not be good at grinding the new lenses to the exact specifications of your prescription. I have, in the past, gotten brand new, inexpensive glasses that I couldn’t see out of.
So my question — and I do have one — is: Can anyone recommend a while-you-wait* glasses chain that does good work, or warn me away from one that does bad work?
Overnight or in two or three days would be OK, but not ideal, given that I’ll be driving over an hour to get there.
IME Lenscrafters does a perfectly adequate job. It’ll take more like 2 hours than 1, but you’ll be done. I’ve had to have them remake “close but no cigar” lenses about as often as I’ve had to have various Mom & Pop “wait 2 weeks while we send it out” optical shops do the same thing.
Caveats:
If your prescription is a weird one they might have challenges.
If their computer already has the pattern for the frames you bring in they can make them in two hours. If not, you’ll face the choice of waiting a week for lenses or buying frames there that they do have the pattern for. I’ve not experienced any shenanigans with this, despite usually bringing in several year old frames. Admittedly name brand frames I had bought from them earlier.
Given the driving a long way part, definitely call ahead to the specific store and discuss your scrip and your frames with them. Some stores are larger or better-stocked or better equipped than others and you won’t know which until you ask.
I believe these stores are fitting lenses that are already ground to the correct prescription to the frame. So this works best for single-prescription glasses without many complications.
That may have been true at one time but isn’t today. You can get astigmatism correction with cylinder and progressive bifocal correction to custom sizes & shapes all ground in an hourish.
They may well be starting from circular blanks with the raw cylinder correction pre-ground. But everything else, including the lens outer shape to fit the frame and the grooved or beveled edges is all done by the computerized grinding machines at the shop.
LensCrafters will be just fine. All those places that send them out for two weeks, they’re sending them to a place that does exactly what LensCrafters is doing being all those glass windows. I’d be willing to bet it takes an hour or two from beginning to end at all those other places as well and the rest of the time they’re either in the mail or sitting waiting in a line with a thousand other pairs of glasses.
As for the quality, I’ve never had an issue with them and the only issues I’ve heard of from friends or family, they’ve walked in and had them fixed (or even remade) on the spot.
Before using Zenni (which is online and wouldn’t help you!) I went to Eyemart Express. Very reasonable prices and I would have my glasses within a few hours. Never had an issue with frame or lens quality. Of course, it depends on what time of day you go. Don’t go a couple of hours before they close and expect your glasses that same day.
BTW, depending on what sort of break this is, it might be fixable. I once broke titanium frames and, on the advice of an eyeglass shop, took them to a jewelery shop, which was able to spot weld the frame.
I was an optician for 15 years. Cayuga’s worry about one hour glasses is correct. But they shouldn’t take one or two weeks, either. (One of the places I worked had a sign that said “We promise to spend more than an hour making your glasses.”) Normal turnaround time at every place I worked as an optician was 1-3 business days. We could do same day rushes in a pinch, but strongly discouraged it because there are too many opportunities for things to go wrong.
I wouldn’t worry about lens grinding. Nowadays, everything is machine ground by computer, and is spot on, every time. Even houses like Zenni optical can be depended upon to be a perfect grind.
(I’d be surprised if Im wrong about this, but please correct me if I am.)
Not even close. There’s lots of room for operator error, whether by “grinding” you mean surfacing or edging. I’ve had to tell many people that their discount online glasses didn’t work because they just weren’t made correctly. There are vital measurements that are specific to THAT frame on THAT person, and can only be done face to face at the time the spectacles are ordered.
And contrary to popular belief, it’s the optician, not the O.D. or O.M.D., who is responsible for those measurements. (Most ophthalmologists don’t even measure P.D.s for that reason.)
The two biggies are optical center height and vertex (the distance from the surface of the eye to the back of the lens.) The tilt of the frame (vertical angle of the front) and wrap (how flat the front of the frame is) can also have some effect on how the O.C.s need to be placed.
Absolutely. But one thing I’ve run into at more than one optometrist/optician outlet is that the person behind the counter is at least as likely to be just a salesperson as an optician.
Right now I’m in need of new glasses, and I’ve kind of despaired of finding a decent optometrist and optician.
If you aren’t lucky enough to live in a state that requires opticians to be licensed, your best bet is to ask the opticians if they’re ABO certified. You’re much more likely to find them at an independent optical shop (not a chain, although I understand Costco requires their opticians to be certified). A lot of optometrists seem to take some kind of perverse pride in having untrained staff.
My remark was limited to the technical grind of the optical lens according to the specs stated on the Rx… Nobody has challenged that, by showing that the optical shape of the glass was not to order.
That’s surfacing, and as I said it’s subject to operator error (and glitches and defects.) Also lenses are never “spot on”. When inspected they’re checked to make sure they’re within tolerance.