119 – Progressive Multifocal Anti-Blue Light Glasses

 [PHOTO/VIDEO] on TOP = “Foster Grant Wes” / on BOTTOM = “Gaoye Gy1701”

I go through 2-3 pair of Foster Grant multifocus reading glasses every year, because they break or get scratched fairly easily. That gets pricey after a while — I’ve bought 8 pair so far, and just ordered more — so for years, I’ve been waiting for cheap knockoffs of the Foster Grants to appear, and got excited when I saw these on Amazon.
Unfortunately these have awful optics. I have to agree with the other 1-star reviews of this product.

1) The center of each Gaoye lens is distorted like a fisheye.
At my desk I look through the center of the lens at a large computer monitor, but the magnification puckers around the center, so the screen is in focus within a tiny area in the middle of the lens. The attached photo and video illustrate the issue (Gaoye on bottom). Imagine working at your desk, looking through that puckered spot in the middle, and straining your eyes due to all the distortion around it. It might appear to be a big enough area to look through, but in practice only small area of the computer screen is in focus — maybe 5 words of text at a time. You have to move your head in tiny precise movements to keep in focus the words you want to read, while almost everything else in view is blurry. There’s no way to get accustomed to that.

2) The middle and bottom of the lenses differ by the wrong amount.
The bottom of the lens should have the full-rated magnification, and the middle should be about 3/4 of the full strength, but that’s not what I experienced.
— With the Foster Grants, when I look at my laptop screen through the bottom of the lenses, and then look up through the middle of the lenses at my external monitor (which is about 8 inches behind my laptop screen), both are in focus. That’s the whole point of having multi-focal glasses.
— With the Gaoyes, when my laptop screen is in focus through the bottom of the lenses, then everything else above it is blurry, including the external monitor. Then if I adjust my head so the external monitor is in focus through the center spot of the lens, then laptop screen is blurry. In order for me to use these Gaoye glasses, I’d need to rearrange my desk, but even then the optics are so distorted I don’t think it’d help.

3) The distance portion at the top of the lens isn’t great either.
The optical distortion reaches nearly to the top center of the lenses (see the photo+video), so there’s only a thin slice above it which is good for viewing distant scenes.

I hope in some future iteration, they fix the optical problems. But seeing how Gaoye/Livho seem to be paying reviewers to leave 5-star reviews, they may more interested in scamming customers than improving the product.

Positive aspects of Gaoye glasses:
A. Half the price of Foster Grant or Sightline
B. Very lightweight
C. Blue light blocking seems effective
D. Stylish, in the sense that nowadays it’s more fashionable to have large lenses (although it’s not my taste)

If you want plain lenses with no magnification, then I’m guessing they’d be fine. But then you might as well buy those “Livho blue light blocking glasses” that all these 5-star reviewers also reviewed. You might go look at the “AOO Keyboard Cleaner” too, seeing how it’s getting such good reviews from these same reviewers.

BTW, I also bought a pair of the FEISEDY multifocal glasses and almost everything about them was identical to the GAOYE ones. You can look at the product description of the FEISEDY glasses to see a little more information about the optical design.

In the end, I returned both the Gaoye and Feisedy glasses, and bought more Foster Grants.

P.S. Sorry the video resolution was lowered so much after upload that it’s very difficult to see the fisheye effect.

Compré esta opción por el tipo de material, mi hijo el mayor es muy descuidado y esto permite que no los rompa o maltraten, a ambos les ajustó perfecto (8 y 10), vienen con una toallita para limpiar y una lamparita para probar el filtro de luz azul, vienen ambos empaquetados en una caja, pero cada uno en su propia bolsita. Además llegó dos días antes de la fecha estimada.

Tired of looking at myself on video calls since working from home (ha ha) so I needed a new look. These “cat” glasses are perfect and I really like them. They are colorful, comfortable to wear, and stylish. They seem to be well made and best of all—they don’t catch my hair in the hinges. I have a smaller face and so it is sometimes hard to find glasses that don’t look huge on me. The lenses of these glasses are a bit larger of a style, but the frames fit me well to stay on my face. It would have been nice if they came with little “sleeve” cases like some other glasses do, but they do not come with cases. Each pair comes in a zipper plastic bag—so they are protected—but no case. I am very happy with these glasses and I do recommend them.

I write honest reviews to help others make informed purchases because I read reviews myself and know how helpful they can be. I hope that my review helped you.

UPDATE: I have a habit of wearing my reading glasses up on my head all the time when I am not wearing them—like when I am in the car. The other day, while my glasses were up on top of my head, a huge bunch of my hair got caught in the metal hinge at the temple and there was no way that hair was coming out. I tried everything to coax it loose, but nothing worked. Eventually that bunch of hair broke off and so is now very short—ugh. Even though it’s “my bad” for wearing my glasses up on top of my head, I really wish somebody could make glasses that don’t catch my hair in the hinge. I did not remove any stars for this, but if this continues to happen, I will.

Bought this product the other day. It came with not only the two pairs of glasses but a glass cleaner cloth, a protective case, and a blue light. Great for dealing with headaches from looking at my computer all day.

They’re lightweight. Comfy to wear. The black with clear bottoms are cute and trendy. Mostly I love how convenient they are. I can watch tv and text someone at the same time. I can wear these for hours. They’re cheap, but the best $15 I’ve spent in a while!