Drivewear / rx-safety review

[tsengik]

I've been meaning to write a review for some time, so here it is:

I bought a pair of drivewear lenses in polycarbonate in Oakley Whisker
frames from http://www.rx-safety.com. I highly recommend them. They
have drivewear for +$85. My prescription was perfect; I want to say
they're even better than the two pairs I got from Optical4less (and I
would say those are perfect too) because they seem to have less
distortion peripherally, but I don't know if that's a function of the
lenses themselves or the lens maker (the oakley frames curve a lot
more than my regular glassses). They have great customer service and
quick turnaround (Mine took 2 weeks, one of which was for the
antiglare coating). I called and emailed them several times just to
feel them out and also to change my frames and they were always easy
to get a hold of and quick to respond. You also more or less speak to
the same people, who are not foreign, speak perfect English and are
located on site in New Jersey. I did ask them if they would refit
frames and they said yes, for a $15 lab fee plus the cost of the
lenses. For ordinary lenses, they're not the cheapest, because they
charge more than some of the other online places for their coatings
but for polarized and Drivewear lenses fit to a real sunglass sunglass
frame (something that wraps around your face), they were the cheapest
(by about $30-$50 much), had the biggest selection of lenses that
could be fit with drivewear, and by far was the most accessible
company that I could find at that time, which was late april-early may
of '08. They're also located close to to my house so I figured it
would be easy to return something or go complain if I had to. They
have a sister site called www.visionaryoptics.com which has some
different brands available. I do wish they would just put everything
on one site, because my first impression of the multiple site thing
was that this was a shady company and I definitely wasn't expecting to
get good answers when I called them, but they did put my doubts to
rest very quickly, especially being American and local. The BBB had
no complaints listed on these sites or their parent company, Phillips
Safety, and I could not find any bad reviews on them online, but I
couldn't find any reviews for that matter.

As far as the Drivewear goes, they're just unbelievable. I wear them
all the time while driving and while outdoors except when its
completely dark outside. They're perfect for driving and for golf; I
find I can see the ball against the sky much better and as it crosses
the horizon, where I usually lose it looking through black
sunglasses. When driving, there's next to no glare and traffic lights
seem to just pop out at you. They do get fairly dark; much darker
than regular transitions. You can't look straight into the sun but
you can look at a golf ball, for instance as it flies towards the sun,
without any real discomfort. They're not as dark as the darkest
sunglasses I've seen but there's also no way I could keep regular
sunglasses on almost all day long, if I were to go to a dark
restaurant for lunch, or if I were to pull out my computer out at a
bookstore to do some studying, for instance. I do routinely forget to
change my glasses in front of the computer for several hours at home
without being bothered enough to get up and find my regular glasses.
Being able to keep the same glasses on while driving in overcast and
sunny weather and not feeling blinded inside a tunnel is also
priceless. I did get antiglare on these lenses because I have them on
all of my lenses. I forgot to ask what kind of antiglare they use but
my impression is that its different and somewhat better than the ones
on my other glasses, although I am comparing apples to oranges because
it could all just be the Drivewears talking. If anyone else speaks to
them, I would be curious to know if they could do Crizal Alize anti-
glare, or things like that, although I know most of you here are not
interested in high-end, overpriced stuff like that.

The Oakley frames look great, but most importantly, they fit my big
face and stay on even during a sweaty afternoon jog. I couldn't find
any budget eyeglass frames that would fit those criteria, and I can be
a bit of a brand-whore so I figured, what the heck. I do wish they
came with a hard case though. I ended up buying a really nice one one
from www.citizenlabs.com, which fits the frames perfectly.

These glasses came to around $330 including anti-glare and anti-
scratch. The same glasses were close to $700 when I priced them at
the mall. I'm very happy with these glasses and would gladly
recommend them to others and buy them again for myself. I feel they
are worth every penny and I'm sure that nothing could outperform them
overall, but for the bulk of the budget oriented, brand-name agnostic
shoppers here, I will add that I wonder if a cheapo pair of very light
brown polarized lenses may be good enough in most scenarios,
especially if you were to swap them with a pair of dark polarized
lenses when needed. I might get a pair or two like this for the beach
and the pool if I can find them for cheap enough and will let everyone
know if this changes what I think of the Drivewear.

-Ian

[Iakov]

Ian,
I'm curious if you got COA with your Drivewear lenses. I ordered pair
of glasses with DW lenses from 39dollarglasses.com and they screwed it
up royally. I now think it's not even Drivewear as they don't change
color no matter what weather condition is.

Iakov.

On Jun 25, 1:03 pm, tsengik <tsen...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been meaning to write a review for some time, so here it is:
>
> I bought a pair of drivewear lenses in polycarbonate in Oakley Whisker

> frames fromhttp://www.rx-safety.com.  I highly recommend them.  They

> have drivewear for +$85.  My prescription was perfect; I want to say
> they're even better than the two pairs I got from Optical4less (and I
> would say those are perfect too) because they seem to have less
> distortion peripherally, but I don't know if that's a function of the
> lenses themselves or the lens maker (the oakley frames curve a lot
> more than my regular glassses). They have great customer service and
> quick turnaround (Mine took 2 weeks, one of which was for the
> antiglare coating).  I called and emailed them several times just to
> feel them out and also to change my frames and they were always easy
> to get a hold of and quick to respond.  You also more or less speak to
> the same people, who are not foreign, speak perfect English and are
> located on site in New Jersey.  I did ask them if they would refit
> frames and they said yes, for a $15 lab fee plus the cost of the
> lenses.  For ordinary lenses, they're not the cheapest, because they
> charge more than some of the other online places for their coatings
> but for polarized and Drivewear lenses fit to a real sunglass sunglass
> frame (something that wraps around your face), they were the cheapest
> (by about $30-$50 much), had the biggest selection of lenses that
> could be fit with drivewear, and by far was the most accessible
> company that I could find at that time, which was late april-early may
> of '08. They're also located close to to my house so I figured it
> would be easy to return something or go complain if I had to.  They

> have a sister site calledwww.visionaryoptics.comwhich has some

> fromwww.citizenlabs.com, which fits the frames perfectly.