http://www.izonlens.com/consumer.asp
http://www.izonlens.com/faqs/

I read about this today and thought it was interesting and know some others here will as well. Looks like they are or will be available in contact lens as well at some point. If they offer the advantages they claim to I would like to give them a try.

I'd enjoy hearing the opinion of any eye doctors who participate here. Of course if they do work that brings up two other questions.

1. Do we wait for next years improved model?

2. Will this make hobbyists happier or sadder as they analyze their projector and can more easily see and obsess over every flaw and burnt our pixel?

Seriously though, if anyone here has tried them I'd like to hear about it. FYI, I believe they are about $600 more than conventional eyeglasses.

I got a pair of iZons last summer. *Very* little difference between those and normal glasses, for me. They improve night driving a tiny bit, headlights don't glare as much. It apparently depends on how many flaws are in your eye, and how bad they are - they do a laser scan to see what all the flaws are, and make the lenses have different shapes in different parts of the lens to fix them all, rather than a single corrective shape for the entire eye. Unfortunately for me, only one of my eyes had one of those flaws, and it wasn't major. I still got the lenses - I had some money on my Flex Plan to blow - but for me they didn't do much.

And yeah, I ended up owing around $700 more than insurance covered, including the frames.

Thanks for the feedback. I wondered about that. I'd guess they would have their greatest effect on someone who suffers from astigmatism. I wonder of I get Lasic surgery and HD glasses if I could have ultra high definition sight :).

"I'd guess they would have their greatest effect on someone who suffers from astigmatism."

Maybe they don't do as good a job as as the iZon's, but I have progressive lenses with correction for astigmatism.

But maybe mine isn't so bad, because regular drug store glasses seem just as good (over a restricted distance range).

I really liked this question/answer from the FAQ:

Q. Because they are custom lenses, will they be more expensive?

A. Patients wearing iZon Lenses enjoy superior vision benefits compared to convential eyeglasses both during the day and at night. Better than nine out of 10 wearers report a high level of satisfaction with overall performance.

Translation: Of course they're more expensive, you cheap bastard.

The purpose of these lenses is to apply the same technology in custom LASIK to your glasses. Standard LASIK is to traditional glasses as custom LASIK is to the iZon glasses. The major issue I have with the iZon lens is it must be perfectly and consistently placed in the measured location for it to effectively account for higher order abborations. Once it shifts a little (as all glasses do), you lose the advantage over traditional lenses. These lenses have theoretical advantages over traditional lenses but I'm very skeptical of their use beyond the laboratory. Custom LASIK has the advantage of being applied directly to the cornea... the issues that plague the iZon lense are moot since the cornea is 100% stationary.

BTW, astigmatism is a very simple lower order correction that is commonly misunderstood. All it means is that you have a varied amount of nearsightedness or farsightedness in each eye. More specifically, light moves in the form of a wave. As it comes toward your eye, the sinusoidal motion can appear to oscillate vertically, but it can also be oriented horizontally, or anywhere in between. Simply put, the power of the light entering the eye that is oriented in one direction is different than the light waves oriented 90' away, and the orientation of the two is indicated by degree (1-180) in a glasses or contact lens prescription (as well as the overall power in each meridian).

Custom LASIK and the iZon lens account for higher order abberations. These are much more difficult to measure. An example of higher order correction is when the Hubble space telescope was first used, the images taken were not clear. The people who made the lens didn't account for the simplest form of higher order abberations (spherical abberation). After a giant "contact lens" was created and mounted on the telescope, the images taken were much improved. This type of abberation is one of many addressed with custom LASIK.

[...]Once it shifts a little (as all glasses do), you lose the advantage over traditional lenses. These lenses have theoretical advantages over traditional lenses but I'm very skeptical of their use beyond the laboratory. Custom LASIK has the advantage of being applied directly to the cornea... the issues that plague the iZon lense are moot since the cornea is 100% stationary.
Well stated, and that was the first thing that leaped out at me when I heard about the wavefront technology being applied to glasses. Not only is the cornea 100% stationary (relative to the retina, of course) compared to the frames moving on the face, but you also have the problem of being able to look through the iZon lens off-axis. When the eyes move, the refractive higher-order corrections of the lenses no longer line up with the abberations of the retinal contour. And considering the precisions we're talking about here, I could understand why patients claim to have only minimal benefits using the glasses.

My advice: just go with the Wavefront, or Custom, LASIK if you really want to take advantage of the technology. This assumes your corneas are thick enough and you have no other medical impediments.

- Hadji

"Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light."
- Claude Debussy

Cool! So, if you were to wear these High Definition glasses while viewing a non High Def display, will it make it look the same as High Def? And if you watch a High Def display with these on, it would be like watching super-duper High Def!

how loud are they?

I really liked this question/answer from the FAQ:

Q. Because they are custom lenses, will they be more expensive?

A. Patients wearing iZon Lenses enjoy superior vision benefits compared to convential eyeglasses both during the day and at night. Better than nine out of 10 wearers report a high level of satisfaction with overall performance.
That is hillarious; they a hard-balling themselves. I have never seen a company ask a loaded question in a FAQ then tip-toe around the answer without actually addressing question.

I guess they need an AFAQ section - Answers for Frequently Asked Questions.

-Mr. Wigggles

Hadji... you and I are definitely on the same page.

Cool! So, if you were to wear these High Definition glasses while viewing a non High Def display, will it make it look the same as High Def? And if you watch a High Def display with these on, it would be like watching super-duper High Def!You cannot do that. If you have High Definition glasses, you will not be able to see non High Def displays without buying an optical upsampler. Of course, you have to pay for a monthly HDCP (High Definition Corneal Protection) subscription to ensure that you are shielded potentially harmful images. Otherwise, the RIAA (Real Image Abridgement Association) will sue you.

You cannot do that. If you have High Definition glasses, you will not be able to see non High Def displays without buying an optical upsampler. Of course, you have to pay for a monthly HDCP (High Definition Corneal Protection) subscription to ensure that you are shielded potentially harmful images. Otherwise, the RIAA (Real Image Abridgement Association) will sue you.

Damn! There's always a catch!

how loud are they?

Good question...if they're 25 db or lower, that may be ok...27 db will be a dealbreaker though! :p

I just checked with my eye doc, and was told that the advantage to these is really the accuracy of the progressive lens. Since this is the projector forum, and my interest is in improving my vision for watching a movie that is 20 feet in front of me, it seems like these would have no advantage over my single vision lenses.

I have astigmatism, mostly, and only use my glasses for driving (distant vision) and movies, so I don't see what the point is.

While we are discussing this, are there any other suggestions for my situation, for having the very best glasses? Are there any high end lenses that would offer noticeable improvement, such as the glass lenses over PolyCarb, and is this something any optician can get me?

Man I just made an appt. to get tested for these and while doing due dillgence (google) can't believe AVS had a thread about them.

Has anyone else tried them?

It seems there was only one report here from a user -

It's a shame if the iZon benefit is mostly marketing.

Has anyone else tried them?



NOTE: Some users are reporting a problem wearing these lenses in full-spectrum lighting - apparently the glass does not transmit all wavelengths equally resulting in accentuation of the long wavelengths or red shift.

This is being referred to as the Longwave Filament Emission (LFE) bug....

Anyone able to benefit from these glasses and doing so should also invest in a ray traced Torus screen from Stewart for further HD impact:)

The benefit is greater with LASIK than with these lenses. They are designed to correct higher order aberrations. The lens would have to stay in exact position to get the full effect. Your best bet with glasses would be a good antireflective coating (like those on our pj lenses and anamorphic lenses). This will increase the light transmission to the eye 8-9% over non-coated lenses.

The "HD lenses" is mostly hype, normal eyes see much better than 1920/1080 :)

Oh brother, found this thread (look at "Craigs" comments)

http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19540&page=2

I canceled my appointment :(

Im not buying any of this. Im waiting beyond HD glasses for Xray vision glasses.

Oh brother, found this thread (look at "Craigs" comments)

http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19540&page=2

I canceled my appointment :(

I don't have anything good to say about the izon product. I would save my money for a RS1 :D

What kind of refractive error to you have? Hyperopia, Myopia, Astigmatism, Presbyopia?

I bet all you viagra munchers have Blu Ray vision! ;)

I don't have anything good to say about the izon product. I would save my money for a RS1 :D

What kind of refractive error to you have? Hyperopia, Myopia, Astigmatism, Presbyopia?

Astigmatism and near sightedness.

It does seem like there should be rapid technology improvements in glasses but things sure seem to move slow from an outsiders perspective.

I mean, how long are we going to have the exact same machine that you look through where they flip a 1000 different lenses back and forth saying "which is better"?

We can't tell what you see exactly. That part of the exam is the subjective for fine tuning your prescription to the nearest degree. I could easily just give you the prescription the topographer measures and you would be able to see ok. The subjective refraction should only take about 5 minutes and should allow you to dial in what is sharpest for you. It's best just to relax and if the two choices look the same or very near the same, let your doctor know that (he or she should by the way you answer). Usually you are down to just a few degrees in orientation of the astigmatism axis and the choices look very similar with just a sway in each direction and neither being perfectly clear. When that adjustment is finished your doctor can then fine tune your amount of myopia giving you the best prescription.

If your vision doesn't correct to 20/20 or better you may have other factors such as cataract, irregular astigmatism, or other etiologies.

Good luck.

The benefit is greater with LASIK than with these lenses. They are designed to correct higher order aberrations. The lens would have to stay in exact position to get the full effect. Your best bet with glasses would be a good antireflective coating (like those on our pj lenses and anamorphic lenses). This will increase the light transmission to the eye 8-9% over non-coated lenses.

The "HD lenses" is mostly hype, normal eyes see much better than 1920/1080 :)

This sure sounds like the wavefront LASIK that I had done about 1.5 years ago. The procedure corrected the higher order aberations in my vision and took me from 20x50 to 20x18. It is truly amazing.