One more "Last Word" on my Superfocus glasses

I recently was asked by someone who left a comment on one of my Trufocals/Superfocus posts (yes, even though the posts are over a year old, I'm notified when a new comment has been posted and is awaiting approval, so if you have questions, feel free to post in any of the Trufocals/Superfocus posts):

Hi ICBQ!


I came upon your blog while doing research on the superfocus glasses. For the first time I am about to get some sort of "real" glasses (as opposed to drug-store readers) and I am intrigued by these.I do not think I will like bifocals or progressives from the sound of them.


You & I have a few things in common, I read a lot, use the computer a lot, and I knit (not as much as I want!).


So, it is now the end of Feb. 2011 and I am wondering how you (and the other posters that have them) are liking the superfocus after these few months? Can you update pretty please?

And here is what I answered:

Hi Alicia!



Okay, here's an update. I've now owned my Trufocals/Superfocus glasses for well over one year. My prescription needs a renewal (I can tell this for close-up). Will I renew with Superfocus eyewear? Probably not, but here are my very personal reasons:


1)The frames hug me too tightly at the temples and leave semi-permanent grooves at the sides of my face.


2)The focus, at least for me, needs changing a lot, and it's difficult to do this when you're doing something that takes both hands, or your hands are mucky with dough, wet yarn, soil, and the list goes infinitely on.


3)I still struggle with the way they look. I've actually been laughed at when I've put them on before in front of some people. And lots of times I felt like they needed introducing before I donned them so that I wouldn't get strange stares or reactions.


I wish I had enough money to buy Superfocus eyewear AND bifocals AND prescription reading glasses, because I definitely like the clear focus of the Superfocus glasses, especially when reading and doing close work, like knitting.


I may regret going back to a bifocal/prescription reading glasses combo, but my prescriptions usually need upping almost every year, so I can always try again!

One last word on my TruFocals (now called Superfocus)

(Edit: TruFocals are now called Superfocus) I recently received an email from someone who read my Trufocals posts. Here's what they said:

Hi,

I found your blog looking for some unbiased trufocals info. Considering a purchase myself but trying to get past the marketing hype before dropping that much money. Now that you have had them for awhile what is your opinion? Worth the $? Pros and cons?
Here is the email I sent back:

Here's what I think.

I've read through a few other reviews and I think that if you are a long-time, full-time wearer of glasses, Trufocals seem to work out very nicely. I wore glasses only for reading up until a few years ago when I began to need them for distance, too. I got bifocals and they worked very well for sitting in a college classroom and taking notes from the board during lectures (I was an older student working on a 2nd degree after raising a family). But I didn't wear them full time because I didn't like the sort of fish-bowl effect. I don't need glasses for driving yet, but I would wear my bifocals while shopping or at concerts or at museums, etc.

I didn't like having to tilt my head to read (anything, not just at the computer) with the bifocals, so I got a prescription pair of reading glasses for reading, computer work, and other close work. They were ground for computer work, so when reading books or newspapers, etc, I had to keep things at a bit of a distance, which wasn't always comfortable or cozy.

When I heard about Trufocals I decided to give them a try because I figured they would take care of having to keep things at a distance, and I would need only one pair of glasses instead of one pair of bifocals and one pair of prescription reading glasses. And the Trufocals work very well for that purpose for me. I can hold books at whatever distance is comfortable, whether I'm at a table, in a cozy chair, or sitting up in bed. I can hold my knitting at a comfortable distance too, and everything's in sharp focus. I must say, though, that while wearing them shopping, etc., using them for distance, things are still a bit fish-bowly. And that's where I think full-time eyeglass wearers may not be bothered because I guess they might be used to that effect in eyewear. Not having ever really worn glasses full-time, that effect still bothers me, even with the Trufocals.

They are pretty amazing, though. You can focus and see things extremely clearly and it's so gratifying to be able to read really small print, or zoom from the newspaper in front of you over to the little time display on the thermostat on a wall and read the time clearly.

I have to say that maybe they work a little too well. Sometimes I catch myself re-focusing from the top half of a page in a book to the bottom half because the focusing is so minute that even over that tiny change in distance, you will notice that things change in sharpness and a re-focus adjustment will sharpen things up. And then of course you re-focus again when you reach the top of the next page. I think that behavior is a function of being spoiled by being able to have everything in such crisp focus, and when it's not exactly crisp, you reach up for that little slider to adjust things.

They are very pricey, though. But purchasing a pair of bifocals and a pair of prescription reading glasses can be expensive too. And last summer I found that regular sunglasses were not working very well anymore because they made things a little blurry for me. Add a pair of prescription sunglasses and the cost of those three pair of glasses will be comparable to the cost of a pair of Trufocals, even with the added expense of the tinted lenses. Still, I think you could probably do the three pairs for just a little less than the Trufocals if you played your cards right and shopped around.

One more thing. Each of my eyes is a little different prescription-wise, which I think is probably true for most people. As the prescription for my reading glasses got stronger over the years, I could tell that each lens was a little different and didn't always make what I was seeing on the page exactly the same focus-wise or size-wise in each eye - just by minuscule amounts, but it's something that I've noticed over the years. I am here to tell you that it is the same with the Trufocals. In fact, I sometimes have a bit of trouble focusing because when you get in the range of sharp focus, it seems that the two eyes never quite meet up. A small adjustment of the slider to the left and my left eye's focus is sharp, but the right eye isn't quite there. A slight adjustment to the right and the right eye's focus is crystal clear, but the left is now just slightly off. It seems that I can't quite hit that golden place where both are right on the sharp spot. But then again, it was the same story with my prescription readers. And it's on a minuscule scale - but I do notice it.

Hope this was helpful. There is that 30 day trial. You can always send the things back if you don't like them. But it's a big decision. Good luck to you!

I'm keeping my TruFocals (now called Superfocus)

(Edit: TruFocals are now called Superfocus) The other morning I remembered that I needed to post my decision - whether I had decided to keep my TruFocals after my 30 day trial. I had to make my decision right around Thanksgiving, but I forgot to post about it.

I've decided to keep them.

I had my daughter snap a couple of pictures of me the other morning, one without my Trufocals, and one with. You can see them below. My hair was still wet, so it's pulled hastily back into a clip.

My Trufocals work very well for what I use them for, but I must say, that if I were still taking classes, I would probably go with bifocals. I'm thinking that bifocals would be much better for taking notes from the board in lecture halls - no focusing back and forth.

I wear my Trufocals for reading, computer work, cooking, knitting, and when I go out shopping, etc. I don't wear them all the time because my distance vision isn't that bad yet (and I'm not trying to take notes off of blackboards anymore). But they're great for shopping, etc.

And my favorite thing is actually being able to read the small print on things like medicine bottles, or when trying to read off of a weathered label on a string of Christmas lights what type of replacement bulbs and fuses to use. I can actually see the print! Clearly!

With my old reading glasses, that was still an iffy issue because I had to hold the print at a certain distance for it to be in focus, but that's not helpful when the print is small. It might be in focus, but it's still too far away to read. That's not a problem with my Trufocals, I can hold things close and zoom into sharp focus to read all of that fine print.

And here is the lovely me without and with my Trufocals:




See? They're not so bad. Right? (The correct answer is, "No, in fact they look quite fetching!")


And btw, those flowers hanging upside down to the right are some of the last of the calendula I harvested from my garden. I got flowers right up through the first week of December. The succession of 20 degree nights lately has finally put an end to my plants. The garage is too cold now to use as a drying room, so I've hung them in the living room from the curtain rods. That room doesn't get much light. I now have plenty of calendula with which to make my herbal concoctions.

Some questions about Trufocals (now called Superfocus) answered from my own experience thus far

(Edit: TruFocals are now called Superfocus) In my last Trufocals post, an anonymous commenter asked some questions, which I will here answer in the context of my Trufocals experience thus far.

The questions were:

1. How heavy are they to wear?
2. How well do they fit?
3. How easy/difficult are they to clean & how would one clean the inner membrane should one get dust or other contaminants on it?
4. How is the overall quality of the materials?

I'll answer questions 1 & 2 together:
I was surprised when I first picked my Trifocals up out of the box, they seemed much lighter than I had anticipated. They come with a certificate so that you can take them to an optometrist to get them professionally fitted - which I did right away. There are sort of instructions on the certificate which explain to the optometrist what they can and can't adjust in order to achieve a good fit. Basically they can adjust the nosepads with their special little pliers, and that's about it. My optometrist also adjusted the ends of the arms so that they held to my ears better, otherwise they would have slid off of my face.
Honestly, I think I need to go back for an adjustment because after long wear, my ears are a little sore, and the sides of my nose where the nosepads sit are also sore. (See the Edit below)
They are a little heavier than my wire-framed bifocals and my faux tortoise shell prescription reading glasses and maybe that's why my nose is sore - or, like I said, maybe I need a readjustment with the fit. (Edit: I found out why my nose and ears were sore. It wasn't the glasses, it was the neck-chain with the little rubberized ends that I had put on my Trufocals so that they would hang around my neck when I took them off. It wasn't a good fit for my glasses and caused the problems. I finally took the chain off today and, voila! No more nose or ear pain.)
Question 3:
They are just a tad more involved to clean than my other glasses. Here are the instructions that came with my Trufocals:

Caring for your TruFocals is also easy. Like conventional glasses, TruFocals should be cleaned regularly. Always use a soft cloth and rinse first with tap water to flush away any dust or grit (which can, if rubbed into optical surfaces, cause scratches). Mild soap may be used when appropriate.
... When inner surfaces need cleaning, simply remove the front lenses by pulling them forward, and cleanse with mild soap, water and a soft cloth.

They note that this is the only approved way to clean your Trufocals - which, I suppose, may have implications for the warranty.
They also warn to keep sand out of the focusing mechanism when at the beach. If you should get sand in there, then a blast of compressed air (from the pressurized dust-off cans you can buy in office supply stores) will clear the mechanism.
I don't have any problems taking the front lenses off and cleaning them, but I'm always nervous about cleaning the inner membranes. I do everything very gently. So it's a bit more involved than with regular glasses.
Question 4:
The overall quality of the materials seems to be very good. They seem to be sturdy and well made. The only thing I might say against the materials, is that perhaps the arms seem a tad light compared to the rest of the frames. But I haven't had any problems with the arms, and I'm sure that they were designed to be light to help lessen the overall weight of the glasses since the front part of the frames with the lenses includes stainless steel.
And there is one comment which I read in another user's review that I agree with. The lenses themselves are a little on the small side. It'd be nice if they were maybe a bit bigger.
I also want to add that the Trufocals people have been very nice so far. They even called me to make sure my glasses had arrived safely, to answer any questions I might have had, and to let me know that they are just a phone call or an email away if I have any problems or questions. They even read one of my posts and emailed me with the answers to some hypothetical questions I had posed. You can find the questions with their answers here, the answers are in red.

Trufocals (now called Superfocus) update - OR - maybe I'm just a coward

(Edit: TruFocals are now called Superfocus) Okay, I haven't worn my Trufocals out of the house since the day I got them. I've worn them in the house plenty. I'm just sissy to wear them in public, I guess.

Did I mention that they look a tad different? As in, funny?

Before I got my Trufocals, I wore my progressive (no-line bifocal) lens glasses when shopping, visiting museums, etc. They were extremely useful when I was taking classes at a local university and I had to look at the board and then down at my notebook to take notes, but my distance vision isn't so bad that I need to wear them during all waking hours. At home I wore my reading glasses when reading, at the computer, knitting, etc.

So I have fallen into the same pattern with my Trufocals, except for the fact that I am a little embarrassed to wear them out and about.

I haven't taken any university classes lately (I had been working on a 2nd degree part time), but I'm not sure how the Trufocals would work in that situation. Having to adjust the focus between the board and your notebook might present a problem. The board is sometimes pretty far away in the big lecture halls, so it would be hard to find a focus that would work for the board and your notebook at the same time.

And, here's the thing - you can focus so well with the Trufocals that it really is bothersome when something isn't in super sharp focus, so finding a mid-focus for the board and the notebook for the duration of a lecture might actually make your eyes feel bad, or maybe give you one of those vision headaches.

But again, I haven't been in the classroom lately, so all of that is conjecture. My husband teaches at the local university, maybe he'd let me sit in on one of his classes so that I could try it out. I'll have to see about that.

One other thing that has cropped up in my "what if?" files - what if your hands were really goopy, or otherwise occupied and you found that you needed to adjust focus? This came up while carving my Halloween pumpkin. I was wearing my Trufocals and rejoicing in being able to see the tiny marks I had made on the pumpkin which formed the outline of the pattern I was attempting to cut out. But my hands were goopy with pumpkin goo and, although I didn't need to change focus while carving, I thought about what a pain it would be to have to clean my hands first and then focus, so as not to slime up my glasses and the focusing mechanism, if the need to change focus arose.

But here is another positive. One of my cats had an altercation with another cat and received an injury to her eye. I was able to focus in and really see what was going on with her eye. It's nice to be able to see little things up close and in focus (her eye will be fine, but her third eyelid will be forever ragged-looking, so says the vet).

I have to toughen up and wear the things out shopping again. Wow. I didn't know I was so vain. Gotta get over that.

My Trufocals (now called Superfocus) have arrived - OR - Just call me Dr. Van Helsing

My Trufocals (edit: TruFocals are now called Superfocus) arrived yesterday:

I ordered the regular, and the tinted lenses. They're interchangeable:

Here you can see the little slider on the bridge which is used to adjust focus (click on the picture to see it close-up):

And here I am, this morning (without make-up and barely a half-cup of coffee in me) wearing my Trufocals:

Remember Dr. Van Helsing from the Dracula movie with Bela Lugosi? I'm pretty sure those are Trufocals he's wearing : )

Pretty funky, huh?

Okay, so when I got my Trufocals yesterday, I took them right away to be fitted. They come with a certificate to give your to optician, whereby he or she may be compensated for their time by the Trufocals folks. In other words, you can get them fitted by a professional at no cost to you.

I then went shopping for Halloween decorations with my daughter. She offered to wear some fake Harry Potter glasses so that people would just think we were both wearing parts of our costumes already. I must say that the Harry Potter glasses looked a bit better on her than my Trufocals looked on me.

Did I mention that they were funky-looking?

Well, in all honesty, you don't notice their funky looks while wearing them, unless, perhaps you see it in the expressions on the faces of the salespeople you may be conversing with. Or in the double-takes you're given as you walk around - even in a Halloween store.

But the darn things work. I adjusted them to look at things close-up and to read labels, and then adjusted them again to see farther afield while walking around the various stores we visited.

And at home I could work on the computer, and later cuddle up with a book without having to hold it at the distance of a computer screen in order for it to be in focus.

In fact, this morning I enjoyed reading Dracula as I sipped my morning coffee and ate my Go Lean Kashi cereal - and I didn't have to prop it at a bit of a distance, the book lay right if front of me on the table.

I have 30 days in which to decide if Trufocals are the glasses for me. I think, in the end, it will all come down to vanity, but I shall continue to blog about my Trufocals experience and post my ultimate decision whether I keep them, or return them for a full refund.

I do have a few questions (edit ~ the Trufocals people read this and emailed the answers to me, which are in red after the questions):

1. What if your prescription wasn't quite correct and your Trufocals don't work for you because of it? I ask this because once I got a bad prescription and couldn't wear my glasses. I was given a re-examination for free, and the glasses were ground correctly, for free. What would happen if this were the case when you tried on your Trufocals? Trufocals answer: If your optometrist gave you an incorrect prescription we will machine new front lenses for you at no cost.
2. Does my 30 day trial start from the day I ordered my Trufocals, or on the day that I physically received them? I ask, because I ordered them on Oct. 9th, they were shipped on Oct. 22nd, and I received them on Oct. 28th. TruFocals answer: Your 30-day trial begins the day you receive them.
3. If I decide to keep my Trufocals and, in the future, need a new prescription, do I have to purchase a whole new pair, or can the outer lenses simply be replaced with the new prescription, which, I presume, would cost less? Trufocals answer: In the future when your prescription changes, you will only need to replace the front removable lenses. The clear lenses are $149.00 and the photochromic lenses are $245.00.

Before I got my Trufocals, I had one pair of progressive lenses (no-line bifocals) and a pair of reading glasses (ground for computer work - hence the need to hold knitting, books, newspapers, at a bit of a distance). I only wore the bifocals while shopping, or in places like museums, and I wore the reading glasses while working on the computer, reading, knitting, cooking, etc.
I must say that I really liked the look of my reading glasses. They were stylish with a tortoise shell finish. So the vanity in me will find it hard to come to terms with the Dr. Van Helsing look of the Trufocals - even in the privacy of my own home.
In any event, stay tuned for updates of my Trufocals experience.

In which I prepare for the arrival of my techno-Harry-Potter-geek glasses, OR: My Trufocals eyewear arrives Wednesday

I have purchased a pair of Trufocals eyewear. They look like this:

image from trufocals.com

I will become a somewhat nerdy-looking wearer of this new eyeglass technology on Wednesday. I can't wait, and I hope they are everything they're supposed to be.

They utilize an new optical design which enables the wearer to adjust focus as needed, i.e. the wearer can switch between reading a book and looking across the room, or from driving, to reading labels in the grocery store.

How? With a fluid-filled lens, the focus of which can be adjusted by moving a little slider located on the bridge.

I won't have to deal with bifocals, or choosing the focal point for the reading portion to be ground for computer use, or for reading and close handiwork. Right now they are ground for computer use, which means that when I knit, or read the newspaper, or a book, I must keep these things at a distance from me as if they were my computer screen if I want them to be in focus.

Plus, right now I have two pair of glasses; my bifocals and a pair for reading/computer work, because you cannot use bifocals to work on the computer. Period. At least I can't. If you can, that's great, but I'm not purchasing eyewear for you. I'm purchasing it for me. I'm giving up fashionable eyewear in order to see properly in all situations, and I can't wait.

Trufocals are extremely pricey, so they represent my Christmas, Valentine's, Mother's Day, and Birthday all wrapped into one. But they do have a 30 day trial period. If I don't like them, I can send them back and the Trufocals folks will return my money. My family thinks I'll look funny, my husband thinks I'll be disappointed and will end up returning them, and I think that I will be wildly happy with them (aside from their looks).

I intend to blog about my Trufocals experience and what I truly think of them. So until Wednesday...