Varifocal glasses vs ordinary prescription sunglasses

bigfer

i wear varifocal glasses, but wish to purchase a spare pair of sunglasses for the infrequent sunny days in the UK. I do not want to pay a huge amount for them. Do i need to get varifocal lenses or can i just walk in to specsavers with my own prescription and pick up the cheapest pair.....or go on line?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

unforeseen

I normally wear varifocals. If I were to get prescription sunglasses I would go for single vision using the distance prescription.

You don't need sunglasses to read.

If you want to fork out on varifocals then photochromic is a better bet. It's not wasted money as you can wear them all the time. For the odd situation where they don't work e. G. Behind a car windscreen then a pair of clip on polarised lenses deal with that situation.

sillyvixen

It depends on what you are wanting to do in your distance sunglasses, if you are driving you need to be aware the dashboard instruments will not be clear, or if hiking you will need remove sunglasses to read the map, reading on the beach will not work. You may not realise how much you use the reading and middle distance in your varifocals. many people have brought distance sunglasses over varifocals and then hardly used them due to not being able to read.

tizerbelle

You could also consider fit-over sunglasses - they are non-prescriptions that you wear over your prescription specs. A bit bulkier than regular sunglasses but do the job and you don't lose your varifocal prescription. Prices start from about £15/£20.