Behind the screen... Eye strain. Solution?

Discussions
1

Ok; If you’re like me you find your self behind a screen for many many many hours. Eventually; regardless of screen resolution, or font size, your eyes start to strain. Headaches, Muscle twitching around the eyes… realllly messes with your coding. Not to mention it throws off my concentration no matter how much coffee I drink (love the stuff).

Anyway; I’ve read amazing things about the glasses that filter out artificial light from screens, and flourescent lights. For the really expensive glasses I ‘heard’ it can be life changing. That is if you practically live behind the screen. Thats me.

Just wondering if anyone here has these, or tried them. The reviews are mostly good, but I’m not ready to drop $200 on the ‘life changing’ ones, but rather the more garden variety lenses. Like these I guess:
http://www.gunnars.no/

I figure the Komodo forum was a good spot for this question seeing how most of us read, edit, and write logic most of the day. I know I’m not alone with the eye strain.

Whats the word? They work or what?

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I think Komodo forums is not the best place to discuss things like that. It’s an offtop.

5

It’s in Discussions, it’s fine.

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I’ve been interested in them in the past but have refrained from looking any further into them mainly because the glasses themselves generally aren’t manufactured by the same company as the frame, the fact that they are trying to sell this hand in hand makes it look like this is more a flashy branding thing than an actual valid product. I may be totally wrong here though.

The other thing is that if you do anything with design of any sort then its important that the colors and contrasts you are seeing are accurate, it doesn’t seem that would be the case with these glasses.

Probably fine for gaming, for web dev I’d be hesitant, you might be better off with something like f.lux - https://justgetflux.com/

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Sorry for my mistake in this situation.

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Flux is a great idea, and will definitely try it. Also… There’s a pretty good article on Life Hacker about eye strain, and the science behind these type of lenses.

Video Review

Here’s another one view from behind the glasses:

The larger market for them is for gamers, but there’s also lots of people (mostly computer workers, writers/bloggers, software guys, etc.) that also buy them up. The article goes on to talk about why it always seems like a hoax at first. Here it is if you’re interested: http://lifehacker.com/5980509/do-computer-glasses-really-work

I noticed in the comments they talked about Flux almost right away.

I did some research, and I’m taking the plunge so I’m buying a pair. The most popular brand is Gunner, and their medium line is fairly affordable. They also do prescription lenses along with their frames so I thought that was cool. Right up there with prescription prices though which is probably an equal rate to regular prescription lenses.

Axon Optis are the best, but also the most expensive :frowning: These are the life changing glasses if you work behind a screen. They tout them as “Therapeutic Eyewear for Migraine and Light Sensitivity” are from a company called Axon Optics (http://www.axonoptics.com/)

I found some interesting reviews for these on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Axon-Optics-Therapeutic-Migraine-Sensitivity/dp/B00HXQEQIQ/ref=pd_sim_sbs_hpc_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=01D142MSAF46AJ6H93SG

As usual they have their variety in frames, and styles etc, but they make it a point to stress that if you do any advanced color work, then these are not for you as the lenses block out certain light bands, and the lense technology naturally tones the lense color.

Anyway. I have to go with Gunners because of the price, but I’ve ordered a cheap pair of Gamma Ray lenses from Amazon for comparison.

The fact is I possess all the symptoms that these glasses are designed to reduce, or best case eliminate. I had my eyes checked out and the vision is fine. It’s just that they are strained. This has got to help.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

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Let me know how it works out, I’d be curious to try it myself. Unfortunately I do need prescription glasses and colors are important to some of my work, I don’t see any way around that :\

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Well… Gunner has the prescription variety, but those things are expensive. I think it’s close to regular prescriptions price though. Not sure about the color. I’ve seen some computer glasses out there that ‘are clear’ and supposedly still have similar properties, but I haven’t seen any in prescription.

Here’s the prescription versions from Gunner: http://shop.gunnars.com/shop-all/l/600?p=1

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They don’t seem that expensive, least not compared to what I would otherwise pay for prescription eyewear. That stuff is expensive -period- :\

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I’m wearing Gunnars right now (borrowed from co-worker). I suppose they help a bit. Although I believe simply inverting all the colors on your screen to make everything as dark as possible helps much more.

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That’s an extreme I’m not willing to go to :stuck_out_tongue:

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After several days of using the Gunnar glasses; I can confirm that they do actually work. I’ve ordered couple different pairs ( different frames and such ). It’s hard to put glasses on before I begin my work as a matter of habit, but I’m remembering more and to do that.

If you already wear glasses this is something you do by second nature so you don’t even have to think about it.

Glad the eye strain is gone. I wish I found these sooner. I want to try the Axon Optics variety, but unless they have a cheap demo there’s no way I can front that expense. Although the glasses I have work ( and others may work better ) there’s still a ton of knock-offs that will probably ‘say’ they help and do nothing.

Anyway; thought I would mention it.

1 Like
15

Thanks for the followup! I’ve been using Redshift and F.lux and quite liking it, I might try Gunnars or similar (Axon) at some point.

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I’ve been using Gunnars for almost a year. I love them. They reduce eye strain and as a developer I’m all about health and ergonomics. The prices are very reasonable considering the benefit. I own three pair. Love them to death.

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I personally got me one of those new ultrawide LG screens. They use the new non-flicker LEDs and it also comes with an option for reader mode which blocks out some blue spectrum light for less eye strain. And I turn off reader mode when doing graphics and stuff.

18

I don’t know what’s wrong with my eyes, but I sit beside the screen for about 12-16 hours and I feel myself normal and my eyes aren’t tired by it.

19

Age most likely. I never had issues with eyestrain myself when I was younger, but it becomes more a of a thing as you get older. That and small font sizes.

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Wish this was a default feature in all monitors. Until that point; I’ll make up the difference with lenses.