Anti-glare and anti-reflective treatment for glasses

Introduction

You must have heard or used the term “anti-reflective and anti-glare” glasses. But do you know the major difference between the two? Whether you are a regular spectacle user or an optical salesperson, it is possible that you are using these terms without knowing their true meaning. Therefore, in this blog, we are going to explain everything you must know about anti-reflective or anti-glare treatments, including: - 

• What are anti-reflective treatment and anti-glare treatment?
• How do anti-reflective glasses work?
• Anti-glare glass uses and benefits
• How to choose the best anti-reflective eyeglasses
• When do you need an anti-glare lens?
• How to take care anti-reflective glasses

1. Anti-reflective and anti-glare treatment for glasses

“Anti-glare glasses” is a commonly misunderstood term among spectacle users. The correct term is – “anti-reflective glasses.”

To understand this concept, first, you need to have basic information about glare. Glare refers to the discomfort or loss of visual performance caused by the intensity of light in the visual field greater than the light’s intensity to which your eyes are adapted. Moreover, it occurs when too much light enters the eye and interferes with the eye’s ability to manage it. It can come directly from a light source or be reflected from an object.  In other words, any form of light that is excess and hampers optimal visual function is loosely termed as glare.

There are four types of glare – distracting, discomforting, disabling, and blinding glare. 

Anti-reflective treatment is useful in decreasing the effect of distracting glare caused due to reflected light between the two surfaces of the spectacle lens.  However, as wrongly marketed, anti-reflective lenses do not reduce glare caused by oncoming headlights.

Hence, after understanding what is anti-reflective treatment used for, let’s move on to the next section to see how it works. 

2. How do anti-reflective glasses work?

Anti-reflective glasses come with special anti-reflective treatment. It is also referred to as an AR treatment. 

A spectacle lens is a transparent material with two highly polished surfaces.  While most of the light passes through the lens material, a small part of the light is reflected from the surfaces of the lens.  A further smaller portion of the light that passes through the lens is reflected internally between the two surfaces of the lens.  All these reflections cause a disturbing effect and sometimes even ghost images of light objects.  An anti-reflective treatment on the lens surfaces reduces these reflections to a great extent and consequently reduces the glare caused by these internal lens reflections. 

In addition to this, it also eliminates the ghost images or halos you see around the light that you can see at night. Eventually, eliminating the reflection or glare from the glasses will enable more light to pass through the lenses that will improve your vision.  Anti-reflective spectacle users also report better contrast perception compared to their vision through spectacles without anti-reflective lenses.   

3. - Major Visual benefits of anti-glare eyeglasses

In this section, we will discuss the major advantages and uses of AR glasses. Thus, let’s go through the below points to understand what is the use of anti-glare glasses: -

Improved Visual Comfort

Anti-glare treatment prevents the light from reflecting off your lenses. As a result, the light will reach your eye. Furthermore, it increases your visual contrast, which means that you enjoy your vision more during the activities like working on a computer or driving, etc.

Enhances your appearance in photographs

People who wear glasses without anti-glare treatment often have problems clicking good pictures as any bright light or flashlight on their camera reflects off their lenses. Anti-reflective glasses help reduce the surface reflections from spectacles.  However, some parts of the flashlight will still reflect, hence, a smart positioning of the lights by a photographer can help further reduce the residual reflections as well.

Reduced Power Rings:

Especially for high minus powered spectacles, with thicker edges, there is a higher internal reflection of light at the edge.  This leads to the appearance of power rings similar to Newton’s Rings as some of the physics geeks would know of. Anti-reflective treatment reduces the appearance of these power rings thus, making high power lenses look more appealing.

Add-on Benefits of Anti-reflective Treatment

Protection from UV rays

Anti-reflective treatments can be enhanced to incorporate protection from UV light.  It is often thought that there is no need for UV light protection in clear spectacles.  However, UV rays are part of natural light and are invisible to the human eye.  But its dangers become apparent over a lifetime of exposure.  UV protection incorporated along with anti-reflective treatment and enhanced with higher index lens material can give better UV protection even in clear spectacle lenses. . Moreover, if you want to enhance the UV protection of your lenses, you can opt for photochromic or polarised lenses for outdoor sun protection

Reduces eye strain

TO clarify again, anti-reflective treatment does not protect from Bright dazzling light or glare causing discomfort in the eye. However, AR treatment reduces the disturbing light reflections, haloes, and ghost images and thus makes it easy to see the objects. Anti-glare treatment on your glasses can save your eyes from this disturbing strain.  This should not be confused with eye strain caused by excessive reading or computer work where the eyes get fatigued.  AR treatment will not relieve the strain caused by tired eyes. 

Decreases blue light exposure

We use a variety of digital devices like laptops, phones, tablets, TVs, etc., that emit blue light that in recent times has been considered by health and lifestyle experts as harmful. Some anti-reflective or anti-glare treatments can also reduce your blue light exposure. ITs and an additional feature that can be incorporated into AR treatments.  Eventually, reduce your eye strain and improve your sleep pattern.

Water Repellent

The anti-reflective treatment gives a smoother surface to the lens. In addition to that, the anti-reflective or anti-glare treatment also repels water which makes it even easier to clean them. This feature is also beneficial for people who spend most of their day outside - advanced AR treatments with water repellency will cause sweat, rainwater, and other water droplets to flow off the surface so one has to wipe minimally. 

Oleophobic

Modern-day AR treatments have oleophobic properties.  As a result of these, there are fewer smudges and finger marks on the lens surface.  So one needs to clean the lenses less often during the day and can go with wiping the spectacles fewer times in a day compared to traditional spectacles.  

Anti-static or Dust repellent

This property of new-age AR treatments makes it easier to clean spectacles, reducing the number of times one needs to clean the spectacle lenses in a day.  Overall vision remains clear and stable during the day since the lenses do not get dirty as often as previous generations of spectacle lenses.

4. How to choose the most suitable AR treatment for you?

Initially, AR treatments were considered a hindrance due to their constant requirement to be cleaned and issues like peeling treatment and frequent scratching. However, AR technology has seen several improvements in the past few years and has become one of the most useful and preferred options.

The new generation anti-reflective glasses are tough and durable. In addition to that, they also provide clearer vision while decreasing eye strain. However, while purchasing your AR glasses, it is important to keep the below points in mind: -

• Ask for specific features of the AR treatment being offered.  There are internationally reputed brands like Crizal (by Essilor), SeeCoat (by Nikon), and Duravision (by Zeiss) among others.  Each has a few options with varying grades of features clubbed together.  Consider a mid or higher-end anti-reflective treatment to get the maximum benefits.
• Frankly discuss your lifestyle and purpose for the spectacles - like office work, screen time, etc to allow an optician to suggest special-purpose AR treatments
• Carefully understand the cleaning and maintenance procedures to get the maximum advantage out of your lenses.

Caring for glasses with anti-reflective lenses

Anti-glare eyeglasses come with a lot of benefits. But along with this, they also require a little more care while handling them. Otherwise, you may end up damaging the lenses. Therefore, please ensure that you follow a few simple care rules to keep your anti-reflective glasses in the best possible condition: -

• Use a Case

The anti-glare or anti-reflective treatment on your glasses helps prevent the reflections, it can also make scratches on the lenses more visible. Don’t misunderstand that AR-treated lenses get scratched more easily.  AR treated lenses are so transparent that scratches are noticed more easily on them.  Therefore, you should always keep them in a hard-shell case before putting them into your bag or briefcase to prevent damage.

• Clean with a microfiber cloth

You should never clean your anti-glare lens with a tissue or cloth with a harsh surface as it can leave scratches on the glass. The best option to clean the glasses is with a microfiber cloth which is specially designed to make sure that it doesn’t ruin the treatment.

• Clean with water

Never clean your eyeglasses dry as they may already contain dirt or debris on the surface that can scratch the glass. Therefore, rinse the eyeglasses with water or use a special solution before wiping them with the microfiber cloth.

Please note that you should not use any harsh solutions like alcohol, window cleaner, vinegar, bleach, etc., to clean the lenses as it can damage the AR treatment.

FAQs

1. How to clean anti-reflective glasses?

It is easy to clean your anti-reflective glasses. You can clean them with the help of the various cleaning solutions available in the market. Apart from this, you can also clean your glasses with warm water and then wipe them with a microfiber cloth. Moreover, you should always get the cleaning solution from a reliable retailer like R.Kumar Opticians.

2. How to add anti-reflective treatment on glasses?

You can get the anti-reflective or AR treatment added to the glasses from a reliable optician. If you want to add AR treatment to your glasses, you can contact the R.Kumar Opticians.

3. How to check the anti-reflective treatment on glasses?

To check whether your eyeglasses have an anti-reflecting treatment or not, you should look at the backside of the glasses. If your glasses reflect the light in green, blue, red, or purple color, then your glasses have a treatment. However, if the colors reflected from the eyeglasses are the same as the original light, then eyeglasses do not have an AR treatment.

4. Can anti-glare treatment increase scratch?  

The anti-reflective treatment has become one of the most widely used additions today as it helps to improve the optical properties. The anti-glare or anti-reflective treatment on your glasses helps prevent the reflections glare, it can also make scratches on the lenses more visible. Don’t misunderstand that AR-treated lenses get scratched more easily.  AR treated lenses are so transparent that scratches are noticed more easily on them.