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Lenses · Screens and work

Do I need computer glasses? Count your screen hours first.

Most people who ask have never been asked how many screens, how far away, and for how long.

This is a guide, not an eye test — any change in your vision is an examination first.

Start with the number

Two answers, and you have a figure worth talking about.

These are the same two questions the STOTTS. Lens Profile asks, with the same answers to choose from. Nothing appears until you have answered both — a number you have not earned is not a number worth showing.

What the phrase actually means

“Computer glasses” is three different things — and people are usually sold whichever one is nearest.

Three of these are real answers to a real problem. Which one fits depends on your prescription, your age, your working distances and whether you already wear something. None of them is picked from a menu.

01

Support built into single vision

Nikon Relaxsee family

A single-vision lens with a small amount of near support built into it, made for digital device users — the sort of long screen day that leaves your eyes tired before your work is finished. It looks and wears like an ordinary pair.

Support level 0.50, 0.75, 1.00 or 1.25 chosen with you, not by age band.

Screen-ready single vision (Relaxsee): it is still a single-vision lens — it will not turn into a varifocal or replace a prescription check.

STOTTS. Screen · Single vision, screen support
02

An occupational desk design

Nikon E-Life Pro family

A lens calculated around a working distance rather than around a road — the desk, the screens and, where your day spans it, the room. This is what most people picture when they say “office lenses”.

The furthest and nearest distances you actually use at your desk, measured — this is what decides 1 Metre or 2 Metres.

Stated up front: “Lens design not suitable for driving”. It lives at your desk, beside your everyday pair.

STOTTS. Screen · Desk or room reach
03

Your everyday pair, set up better

Your current lens family

Often the honest answer. The same everyday design, fitted around the distances you actually use, with the frame and fitting height checked against it — and sometimes a coating chosen for a reason you gave us.

The distances you actually use, noted from your profile and measured where it matters.

A general-purpose lens will still be a compromise for a long working day compared with a pair made for it. We would show you the difference rather than claim it.

STOTTS. Everyday

Lens technology: Nikon Lenswear. Configuration: STOTTS.

A woman at a table indoors wearing glasses, looking at something close in front of her
Imagery: Nikon Lenswear

And one thing it does not mean by default

A filter coating is a conversation, not a default.

“We do not suggest a filter coating simply because you use screens.”

That is our own rule, written into the Lens Profile. A coating is chosen for a reason you gave us — reflections on your lenses, scratches, glare after dark, reading in dim light — and never added because a form noticed that you work at a computer. If you have been offered a filter coating and want a straight view of what it does and does not do, we have written one in the journal.

The habits that give it away

The hours say how much. The habits say whether it is costing you anything.

Nobody arrives saying “my intermediate zone is too narrow”. They arrive having quietly rearranged their working day around their glasses. Five of these come up again and again.

  1. Leaning closer

    Your chair creeps forward through the afternoon and you finish the day closer to the screen than you started it.

  2. Making the text bigger

    Zoom at 125%, then 150%. A reasonable fix — and a clear signal about the distance the lens is being asked to cover.

  3. Moving your monitor to suit your glasses

    The monitor has been raised, lowered or pulled in to suit the glasses. The desk has been rearranged around the lens.

  4. Pushing back from the screen

    Or the opposite: you sit further back to find a distance that works, and everything on screen gets smaller for it.

  5. Putting computer work off

    The admin, the spreadsheet, the long document — left until tomorrow because looking at it is uncomfortable. This is the one people mention last and notice first.

Long hours with none of these usually means the pair you have is coping. Moderate hours with three or four of them usually means it is not.

Who probably does not need them

Under about three hours a day, with none of the habits, the answer is no.

This is the wording the Lens Profile uses on your own result, printed here so you can hold us to it. A second pair has to earn its place, and screens alone do not earn it.

A dedicated computer pair

“Screens aren't a big enough part of your day to justify a pair of their own.”

And if you already own glasses made for your working environment: “You already own and use glasses made for your working environment. We would review those before suggesting anything new.”

When nothing you told us earns a change: your current set-up, kept, with what is working said out loud. That is a real answer, not a soft one.

Computer glasses, answered straight.

Do I need computer glasses?

It depends on three things nobody usually asks: how many hours a day, how many days a week, and how far away the screens actually are — plus whether you have picked up any of the habits. Long screen days with the habits usually point at a lens set around your working distance. Short screen days without them usually point at nothing at all, and we would say so.

Do computer glasses work?

A lens calculated around the distance you actually work at does a real and measurable job: the widest, most usable part of the lens sits where your screen is, so you stop moving your head to find it. That is what makes the difference — the working distance, the measurements and the fitting. A coating added simply because a questionnaire noticed screens is a different thing altogether.

How many screen hours are too many?

There is no threshold we can honestly publish, because the hours only matter alongside the distances and the habits. What we can publish is where the profile says no: “Screens aren't a big enough part of your day to justify a pair of their own.” That is the wording it uses on your own result.

Will you add a filter coating because I use screens?

No. We do not suggest a filter coating simply because you use screens. A coating is chosen for a reason you gave us — reflections, scratches, night driving — never by default.

Already wearing varifocals? Read why they go soft at the computer.

Ready when you are

Count the hours. Then tell us the distances.

Three minutes about your screens, your desk and the habits you may have stopped noticing — and we'll show you the configuration we'd build, or say honestly that nothing needs to change.

Count your screen hours — start my Lens Profile Book a lens consultation

This is a guide, not an eye test — any change in your vision is an examination first.

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