[UtilityDave]

Optician here with some relevant experience regarding the opthalmic space, recognizing that isn't primarily what the article is about.

For the most part glasses still have to be custom made to some extent.

That process has been getting more sophisticated (smarter edgers, free form surfacing everywhere) and faster processing times.

But getting the formula right on mail order is hard.

First you have limited information about and from the patient. You have a PD (pupillary distance) and all of these services, that I have seen only collect a binocular pupillary distance.

The lenses have to be, at the very least cut to shape to fit the frame selected with the optical center of the lens moved so it sits over the pupil of the wearer when they are in the "gaze posture" appropriate to the glasses

That is to say if they are distance glasses the pupils will be looking straight ahead, while using the glasses, but the person's eyes may be 3mm narrower than the frame selected, so before grinding the lens that 3mm must be taken out of the "middle"

If one eye was in two and the other was out eight though (very uncommon) you have a reject pair.

If the glasses were of high power and one eye was out 1 and the other eye were out 2, if we were over 14 diopters of correction we fail quality. But not because the glasses, how they fit the patient's face 2000 miles away.

[mikestew]

Hey, UtilityDave, all of your comments are dead on arrival (I vouched for all of them, as they seem well within guidelines). You might want to email the mods to get that fixed, as the only sin it looks like you've committed is not using your account.

[UtilityDave]

I mostly want to try to spread more information about this sector of the economy, it is interesting, and I really wish there were more competition.

Right now there are competitive garden walls if you want to use Zeiss, essilor, rodenstock, and Hoya lenses it is a nightmare to keep everyone current, and lab networks are very difficult to use for end user opticians let alone patients.

If you want to disrupt opthalmic dispensing

Start by making good EHR for offices with good product and lab network integration.

None of the big boys have gotten that or lims with solid legacy support going yet.

[mikestew]

Maybe you're just tacking on a general reply to my comment, or maybe you misunderstood what I am saying. When I say "dead on arrival", I mean that your comments are "dead" in that no one can see them (unless they change a setting from default). YOU can see them, but no one else can.

That said, it looks like the mods have fixed it behind the scenes, as your last comment did not show up as "dead".

[UtilityDave]

I was unclear. Thank you ( just woke up) thanks!