Hours of staring at a computer or scrolling through your phone can irritate your eyes and affect the quality of your sleep, too. Blue-light glasses are popular accessories that claim to help, easing eye strain caused by looking at screens for too long.
To be clear, there’s no scientific evidence that blue light actually causes eye strain, nor that blue-light glasses can help ease eye strain. You should speak to an eye doctor if you suffer from persistent eye irritation, or if you’re looking to replace your existing prescription lenses with a pair of blue-light-blocking ones.
If you’d like to try a pair out, though, we’ve gathered some options. The best blue-light blocking glasses, Prospek Arctic from Spektrum ($37), offer both at a reasonable price. If you're looking for a low-cost pair, the TJIN Square Nerd Blue Light Blocking Glasses ($17) work great, too. But for the most extensive prescription possibilities, Felix Gray has attractive styles, like Roebling, for everyday wear.
Spektrum's Prospek Arctic blue-light-blocking glasses are affordable, unassuming and available in a wide range of reader powers. The lenses' slight yellow tint filters blue light without entirely discoloring a digital screen, making them perfect for computer work. For an additional, you can add your prescription to the Prospek Arctics easily on Spektrum's website. Although the Arctic style reflects a unisex, modern aesthetic, there are a number of more conventional frame styles under $50 available from the brand.
If you're not sure whether blue-light-blocking glasses are for you, this $17 pair from TIJN is a good place to start. The cute, nerd-shaped frames are an Amazon best-seller and a budget version of the brand's high-end styles. They come in multiple colors and are perfect to keep as a travel or backup pair of blue-light blockers. Although you can't get these with prescription lenses, TIJN's glasses do a fine job if you wear contacts or have decent eyesight.
Pixel Eyewear's Argo blue-light glasses are impeccably retro, and they're just one example from the large library of chic designs the company offers. Pixel's lenses are so clear that you might not think they're blocking your eyes from blue light, but wearing them for a few days helped with those nagging, computer-screen-induced headaches. Though they're pricey at $95, you can wear them in any setting, including outdoors. The lenses double as UV blockers that protect eyes from harmful radiation.
With Felix Gray glasses, you don't have to choose between your prescription lenses and protection from blue light. Although limited in number, all of Felix Gray's styles can be customized to your prescription, and the brand offers reading glasses with powers up to +2.5, too. They're expensive for non-prescription styles, but the $145 cost for a vision-correcting pair is quite affordable for everyday glasses.
Felix Gray also names its glasses after famous scientists, mathematicians and inventors. The Roebling style is named for Emily Roebling, the first female field engineer who oversaw construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
If you're content with the prescription lenses you own but want blue-light protection on occasion, the $20 ElementsActive Over Glasses Anti Blue Blocker glasses do the trick. We found they're the best for wearing with prescriptions because they're large enough to fit over most glasses comfortably. ElementsActive also offers clip-on blue-light blockers that attach to frames. The lenses are tinted an unattractive orange, but you can rest assured that blue light isn't reaching your eyes while wearing them.
Gunnar is the only patented gaming eyewear, making its Intercept pair perfect for those who spend hours at a time playing on a PC or other console connected to a TV. Though they are advertised as "gaming" glasses, they work just as well for any computer activity where you have to look at a screen for extended periods. The yellow-tinted lens might deter some, but the coloring softens the light emitted from screens. Gunnar has a vast selection of frame styles, some of which are quite stylish.
