Foster Grant Men's Braydon Multifocus Reading Glasses

Better than previous prescription glasses that I've had both in terms of build and viewing quality.

I had a bad experience with prescription progressive glasses. After paying quite a lot for them, I found them very uncomfortable to wear, because I couldn't get used to the distortion. They made me queasy, even after wearing them every day for a few weeks. I gave up, and stayed with my single strength readers. That was about a year ago. I recently tried a pair of these foster grant "multifocus" readers - what a difference. These lenses are (nearly) distortion free, and the useable area is very wide - unlike the prescription glasses (from warby parker) which had a narrow "corridor" where the image was sharp. These glasses are lightweight, which also makes them physically comfortable as well as optically comfortable. As far as style, I think these are just OK - but fashion is very subjective. The range of frames offered with this feature is not very wide. The build quality is good, but not great. I don't expect these to last more than a year or so. But even with these issues, the lenses more than make up for it. They're just great, functionally speaking - especially in contrast to my expensive prescription glasses. Initially, I ordered the strength that I use for my regular readers. I found that this was not quite strong enough in the multifocus pair. I ordered another pair, a half diopter stronger- and they are perfect. They feel just like my regular readers now. Your mileage may vary. I was so impressed with this "multifocus" concept, I decided to buy a couple of other brands of this type of glasses. The other manufacturers' glasses are less expensive by about $10 - $15. The first pair arrived today. I wore them for a few hours, and they were ok - but they also distorted the lower half of my field of vision a bit. The distortion was significantly less than my prescription glasses, but significantly more than these Foster Grant lenses. I have another pair from another manufacturer arriving in a few days, and I'll update this review if the next pair performs better than these foster grant multifocus glasses.

Great value for the money! Much better than a $350 pair of glasses from my optician. I bought these while I was waiting to see my eye doc and get new glasses made after cataract surgery. These worked really well, providing excellent clarity for reading close up, and computer work. I did notice its distance viewing was slightly less acute than the view with my newly corrected, cataract-free eyes, but not by much. When I got my new progressive prescription glasses, they were tough to wear because viewing anything away from the center was blurry and streaky. Apparently, this is because physics and optical law require the prescription to be applied to the lenses in the shape of an hour glass. I Googled it. But somehow, these Foster Grants are designed without those hourglass constraints and they work great!

These glasses offer clear lenes, versatility, lightweight, and look good too. After cataract surgery my distance vision is 20/20, but for reading and computer use, I need reading glasses. For me that is most of each day. So the glasses I use have to be comfortable, and they have to allow use without eye strain for perhaps 12 to 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. That is a lot to ask, but these glasses meet and exceed all of my expectations and they are affordable into the bargain.

These are well made glazes with a progressive lens--sort of. The top part of the lens is not plano, so for those who have had cataract surgery and suddenly find themselves with 20/20 distance vision, these glasses are NOT for you. There is no false advertising by Foster Grant; they don't claim plano on top. If you want half magnification or so on top, these glasses may be fine for you.

Very good!

I'd rarely feel compelled to write a review. I think acknowledgment of a good product or service is well worthwhile but negative reviews, I find, are often born out of personal opinion. This product is different - for me they are unusable although I decided to wear them for this review so I can explain to you the problem. As soon as they arrived I was impressed that they looked as I expected, so from that perspective I was happy. They appear well built, and not at all flimsy. Things changed immediately I put them on. At first I thought it was a bad case of dirty lenses so I inspected them and they were completely clean, as you would expect with brand new. I put them back on and it was like there were finger prints on the lenses, you know, the kind which cause that 'foggy' and "blurry" effect. So, my wife tried them and got the exactly the same. It turned out to be a severe case of eye/face reflection from the back of the lenses. Yes, the twinkle in my eye was creating a haze-like effect throughout the field of vision. It is much worse as I look down at my keyboard while typing, slightly less so as I look at the bright monitor. At longer ranges I constantly want to take them off to 'clean them". I have had several people try them and all report the same effect. I even offered them to a colleague for free who graciously declined once he had tried them. Either way, I purchased these on the basis that multi-focus lenses should theoretically negate, to some extent, the need for head-tilting or constant removal to adjust to different fields of focus. These glasses don't satisfy this and however noble the attempt to produce a more 'rounded' lens they overlooked this key element during testing. As a glasses wearer I have worn various makes, styles and lens types over the years and never have I had such a bad lens reflection as with these. I will be returning them for a refund!

I need reading glasses to work (for presbyopia), and need stronger correction for closer work, not as much for looking at the computer monitor, and almost none for looking at my colleagues, whiteboards or projector screens when in meeting rooms. I tried with several multifocus prescription glasses, and they all had weird aberrations, had too strong correction at the top, and a tiny size for the closer reading area bottom, tiny both vertically and horizontally: if I held a book in my hand, the reading area didn't even cover the width of a paperback page. (I find it idiotic to design prescription glasses in a way that you have to move your head or book to be able to read it.) After I threw all those (expensive) glasses away, but before going back to swapping two reading glasses perched at the tip of my nose, I decided to give the Foster Grant multifocus readers a try. For the price, I didn't expect much. I was blown away: these glasses are much better optically than all the $400+ fancy-coating prescription glasses I've bought, the multifocus does not have dizzy aberrations, the three correction zones go all the width from once side to the other, and vertically they're high enough to be useful. Plus the top correction works great for looking at whiteboards without having to push down my glasses. The frames are too weak for the kind of heavy use I give them: I've broken two at the hinge in a year and a half. Nevertheless, the price can't be beat and I'm willing to keep extra pairs hanging around in case I break or forget them. The fragility would knock off a star in the rating, but the price puts it back up again. I dread the day they stop making these; when the time comes, I think I'll have to order enough pairs to last 20+ more years.