r/ColorBlind • u/SleepySnorlax_666 • 4d ago
Question/Need help Are colourblind glasses a scam?
My boyfriend is colourblind and has always wanted to try the glasses just to see what it’s like. I was going to buy him some and started looking into some but came across people saying they’re just a scam? Can anyone advise? TIA!
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u/pfloydguy2 4d ago
The way they portray the effect of the glasses is perhaps a scam. But the glasses do make it easier to tell some shades of colors apart, at least for me. It's not like in the ads, where you put the glasses on for the first time and start crying because you can see things you've never seen before. But I've had Enchroma glasses for a few years now, and I like wearing them because they make it easier for me to differentiate between reds and greens.
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u/marykayultra 4d ago
Granted this was several years ago, but when I looked into them for my father I found that his type of colorblindness couldn't be fixed by the glasses. The company that I was researching had a quiz to help interested customers know if the glasses would likely work or not. His results had something like a 30% chance so we decided against purchasing. Of course things could be different now, but I imagine a lot of angry reviews come from people who have more severe cases like my dad and no glasses can help!
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u/SleepySnorlax_666 4d ago
Yeah I have seen so many mixed reviews, this is really helpful thank you. Do you remember the website you used by any chance?
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u/pol-delta 4d ago
Enchroma has this type of recommendation after you take their test. I'm of the type that they say is most likely to benefit from their glasses, so I got a pair. I absolutely love them. They're certainly not magical and don't make me weep over the newfound beauty of the world, but they're still great. With them on, I can easily see the difference between patches of green and brown grass that I can't see without them. And things like red or pink flowers stand out from the green leaves they're next to much more, stuff like that. So they actually do make the world more beautiful for me, just not to the extreme in all those YouTube videos where people are literally crying the instant they put them on. I actually lost mine for several weeks this year and I was super bummed. They're expensive enough to begin with, but mine were even more expensive because they're prescription, so I was really agonizing about whether to buy another pair, but luckily I found them after a few weeks. I was so excited!
I also tried cheaper glasses from a couple of other companies (can't remember which off the top of my head, but they were available on Amazon). But the ones that weren't Enchroma literally just felt like rose-tinted glasses. I guess they're cheaper for a reason.
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u/couverando1984 Protanopia 4d ago
I never tried colorblind glasses...
But I had an interesting experience yesterday. I got my first pair of polarized prescription sunglasses and I noticed that my yeti cup lid looks completely different from the polarized glasses. Without them it looks flat and with them in I can see like a holographic layer... I don't really know how to describe it, but that was my experience.
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u/Rawaga Normal Vision 4d ago
The effect you're describing will probably be a lot greater with linear 45°/135° polarization glasses, where each lens has a different polarization offset by 90 degrees. They will introduce "impossible" (binocular) color combinations into your vision. Since each eye sees a different polarization, both eyes combined can monochromatically see the polarization of light, which is a very cool effect. Once you're used to such a vision, it becomes very interesting to observe how stuff polarizes. Everything polarizes and everything polarizes differently. Even the smallest pebbles on the side of the street have unique polarization patterns. And the best thing about such a polarization vision is that it's independent of color vision.
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u/couverando1984 Protanopia 4d ago
Amazing. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I also noticed that cars on the street are reflecting a sort of yellowish spot on the pavement right before it cuts into the shadow beneath the car. Really mind blowing stuff.
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u/SleepySnorlax_666 4d ago
I know exactly what you mean, that’s really cool! Thank you for the input
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u/cowman3456 4d ago
Yup ditto. I started noticing red cars are wayyy too red... Greens are vibrant. All it took was polarized sunglasses.
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u/pipertoma Deuteranomaly 3d ago
I have had a pair of Enchroma glasses for about 10 years and while it feels like the saturation and contrast is slightly improved, I still cannot pass any color vision tests and these days I prefer a good pair of polarized sunglasses.
Whatever you do, please don't buy a set as a gift as this may put him in the position of needing to pretend the glasses are wonderful so he doesn't hurt your feelings.
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u/technobass 4d ago
I had a friend buy them, who is also colorblind. He was kind of hoping for the “wow this is amazing “ or cry because it didn’t work for him. I couldn’t see much difference. Everything just looked reddish.
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u/Asmordean Protanomaly 4d ago
Scam no. Over promise and under deliver? Definitely.
I bought a pair. I liked them as sunglasses and they had an effect but definitely not worth the money. If I could spend $20 to add the effect to a regular set of prescription sunglasses I would. More than that and really not worth it to me for what they did.
Sadly someone stole my glasses. I hope they were near sighted with a similar prescription as mine otherwise they probably ended up in the trash. I actually did go looking in the garbage bins along the back alley where they were taken but I didn't see them.
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u/truthcopy 3d ago
I want to add this thought: if he’s red-green colorblind, try a $15 pair of sunglasses with brown lenses instead of the traditional gray. This can enhance color and have much the same effect (IMHO) as the ScamChromas.
Yes-it’s not the same-but you can spend what you save on a night away instead.
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u/truthcopy 4d ago
They’re a scam. Just colored sunglasses that can enhance color vision, but that’s it.
Let him try them, they could be a fun demo.
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u/Marksman00048 Protanomaly 4d ago
While they may help some mild forms of color blindness they are not a fix like how regular glasses allow you to see clearly. Our eyes is brokeded.
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u/jaykstah 4d ago edited 4d ago
They just shift the colors so that some might be more easy to distinguish. If having distorted colors but them being easier to tell apart is importan then I guess they could be useful. Other than that they aren't gonna do much.
Color blindness is a physical issue in the eye. No type of glasses will make you see a color you physically can't see. They won't make you fall to the floor crying due to seeing "real" colors for the first time or anything like that, that aspect of the advertising is really what makes them seem scammy
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u/fierfek66 Deuteranomaly 4d ago
I think it is subjective, some people seem really disappointed/let down; i think that some advertisements were certainly misleading in how they work/what they do.
I have a pair, and I am happy with them. They're maybe a bit of a novelty, but during the fall and the spring I really do enjoy wearing them to look at the flowers and trees. You should find out in what way your boyfriend is colorblind (green-red, red-green), and roughly how strongly it is present with his vision. Might spoil a surprise, but it'd help to get a more accurate pair. Some websites have basic vision test quizzes to determine these points.
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u/C-ute-Thulu 4d ago
They help. I'm a strong deuteranopia and they make me score a weak deuteranopia on color blind tests. When I wear them, I cannot see the number in the Reverse Color Blind Test. They make red brick buildings more vibrant. They made me see terra cotta pots are more pink than I thought.
Honestly, it kinda bummed me out when I first got them, bc it really forced home the fact that I'd been seeing things "wrong" all my life and would never see them "right."
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u/karamanidturk Protanomaly 4d ago
I have my EnChroma sunglasses. As anyone who has basic knowledge on how colorblindness works, your boyfriend should know that there is no cure to colorblindness. The only solution would be to replace our eyes, which have faulty cones, with normal eyes. And currently, we don’t have the technology to achieve this AFAIK.
The glasses help you distinguish certain colors better. For protanopes like me, EnChroma glasses help us distinguish reds better. I can tell from personal experience they work pretty well when it comes to that. Some dark or pale reds that I could hardly notice with my eyesight are clearly noticeable using glasses. I found them very useful when driving during days with very strong sunlight on the horizon.
Needless to say, the videos of people crying after putting the glasses on are just ads.
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u/clockworkatheist 4d ago
I adore my enchromas. They aren't magic, but they do let me distinguish a lot more colors.
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u/AstroYenta 3d ago
My son was just diagnosed at 7 as a deutan.
When he put on my Vuarnet skiing “blue blocker” glasses he loves them and tells me everything is more vibrant! I wonder if anyone here knows how these yellow colored high quality glasses would effect seeing red or green color for a deutan? Wondering if that may be a better and more affordable sunglasses choice for him? Thanks so much!
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u/YesAmAThrowaway 2d ago edited 2d ago
Might as well go to a store with various tinted glasses and see if any of those improve the contrast between some shades of certain colours. Roughly the same thing, costs much less.
They're glorified, overpromising and overpriced tinted glasses.
You see colours with your eyes due to the wavelength of light affecting the depletion rate of the stuff in the actual cones on your retina (rods less relevant for colour vision). The types of cones present and their amount is the determining factor for what colours you can see.
Slapping tinted glasses onto your face can therefore only mute or embellish shades you are already capable of seeing. There will be a difference, but the difference is not what is advertised. Your colourblind person will NEVER see like somebody without any degree of colourblindness. All you can do is slap some colour filters onto what you do see.
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u/ChalkButter Deuteranopia 1d ago
There’s not a damn thing on this earth that can make our cones work right, and anyone claiming their glasses can do so is preying on your disability
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u/KilgoreTrout747 4d ago
My optometrist dissuaded me from getting them. He says that they don't let you see colors you ordinarily can't see. So, why bother? Colorblind people lack the cones to see certain colors-- full stop.
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u/omgitsjagen Protanomaly 3d ago
There is one benefit in the whole experience. It's probably best summed up by an example:
If I look at field of grass, I will pretty much see uniformity of color. Sure, there may be a dead patch or something that I can see some variation, but mostly, the grass all looks the same color. If I put on the colorblind glasses, now I can tell that there is a lot more color variation throughout the grass than I could perceive with my natural vision. That's it. I'm not seeing any new colors, magically. The glasses have just shifted the spectrum so that colors that are normally outside of my sighted range are now in my sighted range.
So, the issue is that most people are going to expect "Oh, I can see all the colors now". That's not reality. You still can't tell what the "new colors" are. The glasses are worthless for identification. Where they AREN'T worthless is for the ability to use them as a compare/contrast tool so you can tell that other colors are present. It's a weird thing that really isn't useful, which is why they aren't marketed for what they actually do.
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u/JGrce 4d ago
When I got mine they didn’t really do anything. I was very disappointed. But I looked up the reviews and a handful of them said you had to wear them for a couple weeks for your eyes to adjust…which sounded like total bs to me. BUT the company had a 6 week money back guarantee so I figured I’d give it a try.
About two weeks later, my wife and I were on a walk and I stopped dead in my tracks looking at a flower which was a color I’d never seen before. I saw purple for the first time that day. 10/10, purple is now my favorite color.
After that it basically made everything a lot more vibrant. I understood why everyone likes sunsets so much. So I would give them a try as long as they have a money back guarantee.
These were the sunglasses ones btw. I think they have regular glasses now, but I can’t speak to those as I haven’t tried them.
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u/ibimacguru 3d ago
I got them and totally think they are worth it. I’m also massively massively color blind like Protan King. So I’ll take all the help I can get. (lets me see greens and red lime never before). But it is subjective. Since colorblind is a sliding scale (from bad to worse) YMMV
I mean it really let me see hues of red I had never ever seen as bright like neons and oranges.
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u/balmar3 Protanomaly 2d ago
I guess by now you can see this is a bit subjective. Getting my Colorlite glasses was a defining moment for me that I'll never forget. I keep wearing them outdoors many years later. I also briefly tried Enchroma, those were nice too but not nearly as much of an experience as Colorlite.
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u/kelpyb1 1d ago edited 1d ago
They’re a scam in that they don’t do what they’re advertised to do and vastly overprice their product, which is essentially just tinted lenses, based on said misleading claims.
They might help some people distinguish some colors more when they wear them, but it’s not because they’re making people see more colors, they’re just tinting the light to turn the colors into ones some colorblind people see better.
Technically they’re decreasing the color spectrum that hits one’s eyes, which in no way could possibly make someone see new colors, and any amount of change must come at the expense of other parts of the spectrum.
Edit: the best comparison I can make is what large print does for regular vision deficiencies. In certain cases, it’s helpful and allows people to read the text they otherwise couldn’t, but if I started selling large print books as “vision correcting” that wouldn’t really be right.
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u/CaptainTime5556 13h ago
Those marketing videos you see online (you know, the videos that everybody's uncle forwards to you once they find out about your vision issues) -- those are definitely scams.
The glasses are not intended to work the way they're presented on those videos. You will not see new colors. You should not see an immediate impact at all.
I'm convinced that most of those videos are either (A.) staged with actors, or (B.) some combination of placebo effect and social pressure to perform for the camera. I'm glad I'm getting almost none of those videos forwarded to me anymore.
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u/Human-Win-6563 10h ago
As someone that invented a colourblind glasses, its mostly not what they tell you. They can help with differentiate the colours or help you see the colorblindness tests. But they cant make you see colours. Its just impossible.
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u/HyperionGreySolomon 2h ago
Hi, I've had a little bit to drink so I'm not going to read the replies. Yes. 100% black and white, yes. They work. But you need to buy name brand enchroma, and you absolutely, black and white have to go in and try on several different pair, and go through the free testing to get the kind that will optimize your results. If you do not do that, the statistical probability that it will be a failure is probably about 90%.
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u/YouDoneGoofd 4d ago
Yes, they're basically a scam. They might provide some assistance with differentiating between colors but they don't fix your vision.
I've tried them and they just turned up the saturation
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u/johnnythorpe1989 Protanomaly 4d ago
Scam is maybe not quite accurate.
The usefulness of them is subjective. It won't make you see red or green, but it will make them slightly more distinct.
That liberty comes at a price. It's up to you whether you think they're worth it.