Looking for advice on Oakley Transition Prescription Direct lenses

guy bono

I am thinking of buying Oakley Transition Prescription Direct Lenses and wanted to see if anyone had experience of them. i'm short-sighted but not badly so. in particular, i am interested in:

Frame Type: thinking of Half or Flak (regular or the larger XLJ lens?)
Lenses: looking for transitions suitable to Ireland's light conditions - mostly road but some off-road. Oakley seem to have a large transition lens range so not sure what to choose. TIA

Idleater

I have them. What questions in particular do you have? They work very well for road use. I think mine go 4 to 20% as they have the iridium coating. I'd recommend the ventilation option too.

Ryath

I have Flak Jackets with prescription grey transitions lenses for the last 6 months or so and must say I love them. Pricey but for me they were well worth the money. Mine go from 93% to 16% light transmission when activated. I work evenings and regularly cycle at night so wanted to use them 24 hours. They have a very faint tint when not activated but look clear unless you looked closely. Take a few minutes to go fully clear but a least you can wear them with out it really looking like you're wearing sunglasses indoors if you make a stop on the bike.

Used to use contacts and cheap glasses with changeable lenses. I used to find them bad in heavy rain felt like lens was going to wash out some times or if you got any mud or grit in your eye from road spray you couldn't just blink it out like you would with out contacts in. The oakleys fit much better and the optics on them are amazing. With normal glasses you really only have fully corrected vision when looking straight a head but with my Oakleys the way they wrap around even looking out of the corner of my eye I see as well as looking straight ahead.

Oakley though for some strange reason have no information on their own site for prescription transitions lenses just for non prescription. They are a few more lens types available only in prescription lens including the grey transitions I have. I only found this out looking at online opticians in the UK. I'm hoping my optician would have known this but I already knew which lens I wanted from finding this so maybe not.

http://www.theinternetopticians.co.uk/oakley-flak-jacket-standard-shape-prescription_p-2595.html

Go to lens colour and you can look at info for each lens type. Some of the other lens may suit you better if you only cycle at day time and don't need them to go fully clear.

guy bono

Ryath, thanks - that was very helpful. did you go for the Regular lens or the XLJ? Assume it was regular given the link? just wondering if you feel they cover all your vision while riding (i'm assuming that's the rationale for the XLJ lenses).

Ryath

Regular certainly feel they give more than adequate coverage for cycling XLJ certainly give more coverage but may be issues with steaming up as the lens are not vented. I guess a lot depends on the shape of your head/face. Jawbones were the best for coverage I tried on but I wanted something that looked reasonably discreet of the bike.

I bought mine in Vision Express would have been a bit cheaper online if I had my prescription. Though I got the frames half price as I had bought regular glasses a few weeks before. Depends if you prefer to be able to go back somewhere local. All Oakley prescription glasses for Europe are made in Mullingar so it may be worth buying online.

dardhal

guy bono wrote: »

I am thinking of buying Oakley Transition Prescription Direct Lenses and wanted to see if anyone had experience of them. i'm short-sighted but not badly so. in particular, i am interested in:

Frame Type: thinking of Half or Flak (regular or the larger XLJ lens?)
Lenses: looking for transitions suitable to Ireland's light conditions - mostly road but some off-road. Oakley seem to have a large transition lens range so not sure what to choose. TIA

The frame will be Oakley and the lenses Transitions (both different brands). First thing to note is, being sports/bike lenses, they will be polycarbonate. The worse your eyesight, the less "fashion" will be the lenses. That means the higher the frame curvature, the thicker the lens will be around the edges. Frames are designed for thin polycarbonate, non prescription screens, and prescription ones (transitions or not) will give not quite so good lookings. When I received mine, this is the first thing I noticed (and didn't like), but wearing colorful thighs, jerseys, helmets, gloves and shoes, that's something you will easily get used to.

Regarding performance, you will be most likely very satisfied with them, thanks to how the technology works (lenses darken in response to UV light) and the fact they darken more under cool or cold temperatures (and not so much under very hot weather). I received mine while still living in Spain, and the first time I used them was under midsummer Madrid heat (30-40 ºC), so they didn't darken as much as I expected. You still get some protection, but they are not going to be as dark as class 4 sunglasses that allow you to stare directly to the sun.

For the usual range of Irish temperatures (5-20ºC), they will work wonders, the transmission rates will be as said by another guy in the thread, and you will initially feel they are not working, but they work so well and so smoothly than you can no longer ride without them. It seems you can add antireflection and polarized treatment to the lenses on top of the "transitions" effect, but that will add another 150€ to the order, for no real gain (except if you want a multipurpose pair of sport glasses to use in water sports as well).

In summary, I was more than happy with them even in weather conditions where they can't perform so well (heat makes the pigment substance to "recombine" and turn transparent, so the cooler, the darker they will be). I ordered mine on the Internet by specifying my prescription on a renowned US-based online shop, and after customs fares, taxes, etc. they set my 260€ back. Which where both every penny. Frame wasn't Oakley though.