Vision help

This started as a reply to the Bifocal Safety Glass discussion in Product Reviews, but it's not really about safety glasses and it's not a review because I end up suggesting a different product than I'm using, so let's just call it the current results of an experiment.

My hard contacts are perfect for distance vision, but I use various cheap readers to clearly see anything within three feet. Usually a +1.25 pair for the computer, +2.0 for books and cell phone, +2.25 or +2.5 for some shop work. On the bike, I'm using a zumo 590 GPS, RAM mounted to my clutch reservoir cover. At that distance, details on the 590 are mostly large enough for navigation, but small fonts used for the current road name and the media player were unreadable - info that's not necessary, but nice to know.

I found Hydrotac stick-on bifocals at Amazon. These soft plastic lenses are intended for use with ordinary safety or sun glasses, and adhere with plain water. Before ordering, I experimented a bit, wearing my helmet with the visor up and holding my various readers at the normal position of the visor to determine what strength I needed to see the GPS clearly. +1.25 worked best for me. I've ended up with one lens inside the visor on the left, so I can glance down and left to see the screen, without moving my head. The water adhesion made adjusting the lens position easy, and it's still holding securely after four months. It is as low as possible without interfering with closing the visor. I never found a position for the right lens that would give me a clear image with both eyes, due to the angles and distances involved.

Using just the left eye works OK, though a simultaneous blink of the right eye helps in bright light. The viewable area is limited as putting the lens on the visor moves it further from my eye, and area in focus becomes smaller. I can see the entire screen but the very corners are cut off unless I move my head from side to side a little bit.

The lens does not obstruct my usual field of view at all. Last week I ran an errand without the GPS, afterward I went back out to the garage to make sure the lens had not fallen off since I could not remember seeing it.

I find that I get 90% of the info I need from the GPS screen (map and speed) by looking at it directly, but the stick-on lens really helps with the smaller details. Having the lens on the visor means that I don't need to fuss with glasses when putting on my helmet. (Still have to carry a pair for off the bike, though.)

I've just learned that there are similar stick-on magnifiers for scuba dive masks. Though some I see on Amazon are flat ground glass glued in place, these seem to be larger versions of the Hydrotac lenses: Aqua Dive Optx Flexible Dive Mask Magnifiers. With a 1.6" width, these will provide a wider field of view than the 1.2" Hydrotac lenses and will probably be my choice when I inevitably need more magnification.

This is a topic that, unfortunately, I can relate to. After having better than 20/20 vision in my younger years, the ability to see clearly close up has been deteriorating with age. What started as just needing .5x readers 20 years ago has gotten to 3x today, so that seeing the GPS and car/bike gauges is difficult. Not being willing to go for the ultimate fix of laser corrective surgery, I have tried all manner of options, from using thin readers low on my nose (very uncomfortable), the stick on magnifiers (regular and scuba mask sizes), to one lens magnified and the other not. The stick on lenses are OK, but not ideal, and they sometimes fall off. While some folks are proponents of the one lens magnified option, it takes about 20 minutes for my brain to adjust to it, and is uncomfortable. I have not tried any contact lens solutions.

So, I bit the bullet before my recent ride to Americade and New England and got my eyes tested by an optometrist. I used that prescription to order a set of very lightweight progressive lenses, with a thin band at the bottom of both lenses letting me see the gauges, and the rest of the lenses gradually adjusting my mid- and distance vision. They are not like old fashioned bifocals, and there is no discernable line in the lenses between the level of correction -- they just change progressively. Gee, maybe that's why they call them progressive lenses. Anyway, they work like magic and I can now see what I need to see. When I wear them while riding, I just flip down the tinted visor in the helmet for sun protection. In the car, I got a pair of cheap clip on flip up/down lenses. The downside, the process and lenses are not cheap.

Randy

Progressive, transition, trifocals, for years.

Can "read" and "see" at all distances.

No need for sun glasses.

YMMV

Yep, I've got both the standard and dive and I cannot seem to get them in a good enough position that doesn't double vision on me......so, I stick with the safety bifocals.

I use the standard stick on's in my sunglasses and when I'm in a dark restaurant, I get the strangest looks as I'm reading the menu with the glasses on.