The best low cost blue blockers for sleep! Including prescriptions and reading glasses!
What are the best blue blockers in the industry? We review blue blockers that not only can easily block blue and green light, but are the most low cost and affordable in the industry. And you can get them as reading glasses or prescriptions!
Blue-blocker glasses are a very convenient way to protect your eyes from blue light. We have already written an article about the importance of blocking artificial blue light for optimal sleep, circadian rhythm, and eye health.
That is why GembaRed offers red nightlights and book-lights. And we also reviewed the top affordable low-flicker ambient red light bulbs on the market! This way you can use red lights that naturally don't emit any blue or green light - which is optimal to use red ambient lighting at night for proper sleep.
However, if you can't switch all your lightbulbs to red light at night, or perhaps you travel, watch TV at night, or go out for social outings. Then blue-blockers will be your next-best option to protect your melatonin production.
Too often consumers fall prey to high priced blue-blockers that claim to be patented or have something that no one else has. Often the consumer is left paying more for the marketing of the fancy brand, than for the glasses themselves.
In reality blue-blocking glasses are a simple technology that has been around for decades! Blue blocking is often required in some industries, and that is why some of the best blue blockers are actually coming from industrial safety glasses brands.
We often recommend that customers get the UVEX Skyper glasses, or Dewalt Laser Enhancement glasses as the best affordable blue-blocker glasses. These are fantastic lightweight glasses with wide wrap-around for optimal coverage over the eyes and minimal frame to block vision. These are always our top pick, especially for home use.
Our owner Andrew has written a guest-blog on AlexFergus.com about finding the perfect blue-blockers for YOUR individual needs. Blue blockers can come in a range of styles, tints, and types that are important for you to choose the ones that work best for you, not just whatever some influencer promotes.
So if you need prescription glasses, or something more stylish for social settings, or more selection of styles to fit your unique face shape - then we go to Readingglassesetc.com
Readingglassesetc offers a HUGE selection of frames at fantastic prices. Then you can select your blue-blocking tints from a LONG drop-down list of choices. They even offer the BPI-550 tint, which is the same red-orange tint that has been used by famous brands BluBlox and Ra Optics.
Then you can even add a reading glasses magnification, or even upload your prescription to ReadingGlassesetc - making them suitable to help many people with affordable prescription blue-blockers.
All said and done I was able to get multiple pairs for a fantastic price. And the ones I got from are high quality hypoallergenic acetate or the super lightweight and flexible TR-90 material.
Well the proof is in the pudding! Let's test out these UVEX, DeWalt, and ReadingGlassesetc glasses to make sure they truly block blue and green light!
Single-LED test:
The cheapest test of blue blockers is with a simple RGB (Red-Green-Blue) strip light. There are some good tests online with holding up the glasses to the computer screen, but sometimes that is kind of a subjective test because of the inconsistent spectrum from monitors and back-lighting.
When you hold up a good blue-blocker to the Blue LED, then it will block ALL the blue and the LED will appear to be "off". You can trust your eyes! Your eyes are very sensitive to light, and you will SEE any trace of blue emitting through.
Or maybe you have blue or green lights on some of your electronics at home. Try it out on them!
We show all 4 of our glasses are doing great at blocking the Blue LED! There is a trace of light from this RBG strip coming through, it seems to be the strip light is activating the other colors even though it is only set to Blue mode. So I will need to re-do this test later with single blue and green LEDs, not RBG style.
Anyway we can be confident these are blocking the blue light very well!
Spectrometer Test:
Of course we don't just want to visually check these glasses, but we want to know the actual wavelength that these glasses are blocking to.
Our affordable ThunderOptics spectrometer gives a noisy signal, that is why we see the jagged lines across the bottom. This is why we do the single-color tests above to make sure we are sure that no blue is coming through visually.
We can see that the UVEX Skyper starts to let in light around 520nm (really good!), the BPI500 at about 535nm, the BPI550 right at 550nm (hence the name), and the Dewalts let in light starting at 575nm!
Now just because a tint can block MORE blue or green light doesn't necessarily mean it is BETTER for your situation. Often orange tints are more practical and easier to use, while red tints are better for insomnia, jetlag, or serious sleep issues.
What Styles To Get?
If you follow the blog on the Alex Fergus website you will learn the details about how to choose the perfect style and frame for YOUR individual needs!
My personal criteria is to make sure they are lightweight, flexible or adjustable, and with long temples (arms) for my big head. That is why I landed on the acetate and TR90 styles.
Here are the ones that I picked out:
An amazing price for these stylish acetate glasses! (Note, here is the link for the Tortoise Shell version of my glasses, maybe the Black version was discontinued or out of stock)
https://www.readingglassesetc.com/products/trust-d16123-tortoise.html
https://www.readingglassesetc.com/products/trust-d16123-black.html
Seen here with the orange BPI500 tint.
Now here are my lightweight TR90 frames!
https://www.readingglassesetc.com/products/new-fogey-ec-parker-black-red.html
My lightweight TR90 frames with the red BPI550 tint.
Runner-Up styles for my next order!
A classic Wayfarer style:
https://www.readingglassesetc.com/products/new-fogey-us100-black.html
A classic Aviator style in acetate (they also make it in metal):
https://www.readingglassesetc.com/products/trust-d1111-black-tan.html
A round tortoise-shell look:
https://www.readingglassesetc.com/products/vivid-862-black-tortoise.html
Conclusion:
We hoped this helps demystify blue blockers for everyone that this isn't some mystical proprietary technology that only a handful of expensive companies control. The truth is that there are some fantastic options for blue blockers with great selections and prices. Whether you choose low-cost safety glasses like Uvex or Dewalt, or a more stylish frame from ReadingGlassesETC, you really can't go wrong!
The best part is that ReadingGlassesETC can help for people that need reading glasses or prescriptions, which is really great to make them available to help more people.
That is why we are proud to promote ReadingGlassesETC and have joined their affiliate program to help spread the word about these affordable blue-blocking glasses.
*AFFILIATE LINK BELOW* If you like our blog and intend to purchase from ReadingGlassesETC, please use this affiliate link to help us track engagement and fund future blogs like this! Or enter code CZ at checkout.