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While many organisations have shown concern regarding the sale of cosmetic contact lenses and indeed all lenses without proper prescription, a recent study has also shown that reading glasses purchased from high street stores across the UK may not be doing the required job either. Termed, 'Ready Readers,' the off the shelf eye wear designed to be picked up, bought and used for reading by the public are falling below required standards.
The College of Optometrists have commissioned the University of Bradford, to conduct a research study into high street reading glasses in recent months, examining hundreds of products available on the market today with varying prices. This project was undertaken in part due to the negative publicity which was raised by the Which? magazines report into ready readers in 2010, which itself highlighted serious flaws in the items that they tried and tested. As this report covered only a small number of glasses, the CO commissioned study reviewed over 20 times the volume that the Which? magazine had to gauge exactly how these spectacles were performing.
The research team had very clear goals when beginning their experiments and tests:
- Are the spectacles capable of delivering what they advertise
- Lens positioning inside the frames
- Were the lenses positioned so that the distance between the focal centres of the lenses fell within the range of average distance between pupils
Upon concluding the study it was deemed that high street glasses designed for reading did fall below the standards required and expected of them with the following conclusions:
- Quality could easily be improved
- Higher powered lenses were more likely to contain errors