I’m debating on Rx sunglasses and whether to just get them for distance (really cheap) or will I regret that since I’m used to progressives all the time?
Looking for any experience with switching to single-vision for driving. Since I’m attached to my phone with an umbilical cord, I’ll be using it in the car (not while moving) so wondering whether I’ll regret not having progressive sunglasses lenses, too.
I’m leaning toward thinking I’ll want the progressive lenses, just, yanno, $100 more!
I have single vision in my riding glasses (wrap-around) and it’s really uncomfortable to read the cyclecomputer through the lens. I tend to look under the frame.
I have progressive lenses with a clip-on sun-glass thingy. Highly recommended. But then again I don’t pay for my glasses.
Sometimes when I get a new pair of progressives, I have the old pair tinted to turn them into sunglasses. Bingo, progressive Rx sunglasses for cheap!
Where do you get lenses tinted?
I have progressive transitions. No clue how the price compares to 2 pairs since I’ve got decent insurance, but it’s nice not to have to switch glasses. If I didn’t have this option, I’d probably go with clip-ons because I’m pretty frugal…
Progressives here. Love 'em to pieces. Having the slight distance correction for comfortable driving and being able to read the dash and nav, or distance and camera settings, or distance and a book… irreplaceable.
I have progressive sunglasses. They’re useful when driving so I can see the dashboard as well as the road ahead. Even just walking around, you’ll need to switch from looking ahead to reading something, etc. The one thing they’re NOT good for is climbing over rocks, etc. where you need to look down carefully at your footing; it’s a bit disorienting.
I use bi-focals for my prescription sunglasses. I recommend lined bi-focals as you are either looking down the road or at the dash (or in my case the bicycle computer). Progressive lenses cause me to move my head around too much.
I golf, and without both, I couldn’t read the scorecard. In fact, golf was what pushed me to bifocals. For years I tried to get by with one prescription in the middle, but found I would either lose the ball at the end of a long hit, and/or be unable to read the scorecard.
I golfed over the weekend for the first time since I got progressives. The one problem I noticed was that it affected my putting. The progressiveness of the lenses gave the illusion of slopes and breaks where there were none.
Hopefully it will work itself out, as, like you, I can’t read the scorecard without them.
Good thing I’m such a lousy putter, I never noticed any problem! 
I bet you’ll get used to it.
I just buy nonprescription wraparound sunglasses. Clip-ons are my second choice.
Prescription sunglasses are why I didn’t wear anything until recently. They’re expensive and in order to use them, you have to take off your glasses, put them somewhere, take out your sunglasses, then put them on. And if you’re driving and suddenly go into a dark place (like a parking garage), it’s a pain in the ass to switch.
It’s the same issue with clip-ons unless they flip up.
With wraparounds, you just put them on the same way as if you didn’t wear glasses. And they’re cheap and easily replaced if scratched. My glasses can cost $400 dollars a pair; the wraparounds are $20.
This. They’re only slightly more expensive than single-vision prescription sunglasses. Far cheaper than progressives. And your real outdoor mission, whether driving or just wandering around, is about 99% distance with the occasional look at a map, phone book, or (nowadays) a phone.
Changing glasses between clear and sun is a slight hassle, but disappears real quickly. Before I needed prescription glasses at all I still had to deal with switching between sunglasses and no glasses. So that’s not a realistic objection.
IMO/IME, transition / photosensitive glasses are useless, especially for driving. They simply don’t get dark enough. And flip-ups are irretrievably dorky. I will never be old enough to have lost enough self-regard to be seen using them.
That’s my 2c and it’s worth every bit of what you’ve paid to read it.
I’m going to third this suggestion. I have a pair of single-vision and a pair of bifocal sunglasses. I’ve found I can’t read the dashboard with the single-vision.
Would you consider using single-vision glassses while using your phone when you aren’t driving?
My current pair of sunglasses, about seven years old, are max-tech: driver-grade photochromic, progressive, anti-glare, anti-fog and anti-scratch. They really need replacement but I’m trying to get the last nickels out of the pair.
I wear them continuously and they adapt fast enough to go from cloud to sun, from car to store, without every being a hassle. (Note that it’s essential to get “driver” photochromics, which aren’t fooled by the UV blocking of windshields.)
OTOH, Mrs. B. (who wears moderate correction lenses) is forever doing what you describe: fumbling for either her clears or her prescrip sunglasses, which are so dark they’d make Ray Charles pause. Won’t get bifocals or progressives, so the third fumble is peering over the frames to read small print (and in which she smugly maintains her superiority because my nearly 20-20 PRK vision need cheaters to read most stuff. It’s weird. Every woman I’ve ever known took endless fumbling around with glasses as a given; by choosing tech and fit well, I’ve never had to screw around changing glasses, peer over them, or any of these other acquired behaviors.
I have progressive glasses and sunglasses. I tried single vision sunglasses and missed the ability to read with sunglasses on. Now I don’t have to change glasses to tie on a new fly when fishing.
My driving glasses are single vision, and they work fine for me. The only difficulty is needing to look under them to read the odometer, and that doesn’t really come up very often.
I get this done at the same optical shop that dispenses my prescription glasses.
Thanks for all the perspectives! I’m leaning toward maybe the bi-focal option as I really don’t need much of that mid-range correction that’s in my progressives anyway. I’m primarily near-sighted and only recently started needing readers, so my every day natural choice was progressive. But for sunglasses I’ll be able to see the dash with the distance portion of the lenses just fine. Knocks $50 off the price.
I’m not a fumbler with changing glasses, the suns are in a hard case, I pull the hard case out and swap what’s on my face for what’s in the case and put it back in my bag. My everyday progressives are rimless and the only clip option with those is to clip toward the inside. Tried it, don’t like it, and not a fan of the look anyway. Those giant windshields that go over regular glasses - nope on my lady face! But it sounds like I’ll be unhappy with single-vision so I think I’ll give the bifocals a shot.