Anyone any experience of these lenses, which apparently transition even when you’re wearing them in the car?

Got an eye test booked for Thursday PM and due to age and diabetes I’m probably looking at some varifocal lenses and saw this Driverwear option. Living in Australia, even winter months can be hellishly bright. Just considering them at this point, obvs will talk to the optometrist. Can you wear vari’s for driving without too much bother? Would seem a great option if I can just have one pair to rule them all. Curious if anyone else has gone for this option and how they find the transition driverwear and varifocal works day to day for them.

Cheers!

Living in Australia, even winter months can be hellishly bright.

What you need is some carpet on your dashboard from Supercheap Auto.

Slightly more sensibly I’d not bother with one pair to rule them all particularly in Oz as you’ll be compromising 100% of the time. Non-vari sunnies (as you won’t need short range for outside / driving) and then varies as normal specs for work/house where you need to vary the focus. As you’d be buying two pairs you ought to be able to get a deal. Some people don’t get on with varifocals so take that into account and also ask the optometrist whether it’s a good idea to have a pair of single vision and a pair of vari or whether this might cause problems. I notice when I switch but it’s only short lived as my eyes adjust.

Then there’s the whole transitions paedo thing…. (see thread on here from a few weeks back)

Haha… Dash carpet not in current car but I did in my xtrail. It works.

I’ve got numerous pairs of normal lenses I can wear day to day but they’re shite for reading. Also got some uber dark mirrored polarise prescription sunnies. Totally get the “slightly dark lenses indoors nonce” look though Bwahaha

I’ll see if they can do me one pair vari and one pair normal / sunnies. Got 400 in my health fund which takes the sting out and work will pay 220 as a display screen user.

Last time I saw the optician he talked me into having photochromic lenses but I’ll never have them again. Firstly, they are terribly ageing. Secondly they form a big dark patch in front of the eyes while there’s brightness around the edges, which is distracting and disorientating. Thirdly they don’t darken in the car, making them fairly useless for driving. OK if there’s one now that does darken in the car, get them but make the lenses big enough to cover most of your field of vision.

When i first saw photochromic lenses they would darken in the car, this was in the early 80s.
They would darken in the house if you put the lights on.
The modern ones which only darken in response to uv light are, as mentioned, totally useless as driving sunglasses.
I personally prefer to wear contacts then choose any normal sunglasses.
I need reading glasses when i wear my contacts, which is a slight pita, but i class that as the lesser of two evils.
Ymmv of course.
Caveat: i drive for a living, so spend a lot of time wearing sunnies even on cloudy days.

Get some good varifocal sunnies so that you can see the instruments and keep them in the car for driving only. Get polarised if you want, to reduce glare on wet roads.

I would love contacts to be an option for me, but they just don’t work. I’m asygmatic in one eye and the toric lenses were a pain to put in. That and the fact that they have to be forensically clean to reduce the risk of eye infection which could be disastrous to me being an insulin dependant diabetic.

I’ve got some clear to 80% Transition lenses in some Oakleys made by Rupp and Hubrach. Although the script is a tad off now, they are awesome lenses for biking in. The whole lense changes as opposed to a patch and I do really rate R&H lenses. I guess the nonce-factor depends on the style of frames you go for!

My most recent sunnies are polarised darkest tint with a mirror. They’re great but I was interested in the new driverwear. It does seem that they start off with a slight yellow tint before turning darker so they will be a no-no.

Seeing the instruments in the car isn’t a problem, it’s more small print/type that’s the issue. I write a lot of nursing notes and sometimes it’s hard to refocus so I think “normal” varifocals might be the way forward, bar any tint.

Appreciate all the info though guys.

I just got some new glasses and after looking at all the options ended up going for a pair of clear lenses for normal use, and lightly tinted polarised sunglasses for sunny time/driving. The transitions that change inside a car work on *any* light so whilst they’ll change in a car, they’ll also change in a bright room. Mid-tinted polarised knock enough of the light out, whilst still being usable if you drive under cover, and the polarising removes all the windscreen reflections.

Aren’t the transistion driveware also polarised to reduce glare further.

There’s a few Transition options. There’s a polarised one which I believe is clear to dark, and a driverwear which has a base tint of some kind of yellow-ish tinge (but not polarised) if I’m reading it right. Kind of like those cheap driving glasses from a few years ago which made everything look uh-mazing (read: cheap 5 quid driving glasses which look cack).

Think best option is normal pair with varifocals and a new set of polarised sunnies. They often do second pair half price, combined with the optical cash from my health fund and my work paying $220 it’s going to work out as a free second set of glasses, essentially.

(Would appear I made a transition…. badum-tiss)

I wear Transition Varifocals – I got them from Boots; there were 2 or 3 options, all the same cost and I can’t remember what these ones were called. The person fitting the specs said that they darken more quickly than standard, so were good for driving – she was wrong on the second point. They definitely darken in the car, which is good, but the problem I have is that they take an age to lighten again, which is dreadful when go from light to dark(er) (eg when you enter an unlit tunnel go into a shop etc). Personally I would look for lenses which lighten quickly over ones which darken quickly. As the Drivewear do not go completely clear, I wouldn’t bother as I don’t change glasses.

I’ve had them about 9 months now. As others have said, go dark quickly, though don’t seem dark like sunnies to me, then lighten rather slowly. I was considering using the 3 month satisfaction guarantee thing but in the end ambivalence about them meant I wasn’t arsed enough to bother. Definitely will have separate clear and tinted specs next time.

Oh, and I prefer to be referred to as Roy Orbison rather than a paedo please. 🙂

I have a pair that I wore for roughly five years, with the DriveWear photoreactive tiny and multipoint varifocal. They were great most of the time, on occasion they could have been a bit darker, but otherwise I wore them most of the time.
My prescription has changed to the point I don’t need the varifocal, and I can’t afford such complicated lenses any more.
They did work surprisingly well in the car, though.

I got glasses recently for the first time (varifocals) but opted for clear lenses and these as a lower cost option than the transitions for driving:

Rapid Eyewear Over Glasses

I’ve not been disappointed, they’re fab – polarising, comfortable and effective in bright sunshine.

^^^ yeah I suppose for in the car they’d do the job. Do they come with a white stick too? ;o)

So eye test last night. Not the greatest news as they found early signs of retinopathy in my left eye and referred me onto an eye surgeon.

Anyway, really good esplanation of different muilti focal lenses and how I’ll need to adjust how / where I look to get the best from the lense. My long vision hasnt changed much (top 3rd of lense. similar with mid rang/ Going to take a bit of getting used to but hey we’ll see. Fuji lenses which are pretty decent so will see what happens.

Got to take an emergency flight back to UK on Sunday, family drama but the specs should be ready when I get back to Oz. Nice new set of Oakley frames too.