One month with the GUNNAR Optiks Marin glasses
The hook to the email I got from GUNNAR Optiks PR agency was “TV and Home Theater Reviewers Rejoice – We’ve Got The Cure For Your Headaches.” As I spend a whole lot of time in front of screens, this seemed targeted pretty well at me. While I have not been having headaches, I have been having eyestrain and this seemed a pretty good review to do.
Update: So hey, I am going to update this after trying a couple of their other glasses and say I suspect that some of my issues with using these on a monitor come from my set is significantly darker looking than the ones pictured. Take a look at the stock photo below and then look at the ones I am wearing. I have tried another pair of their glasses and has no issues with viewing media and color guessing.
Here’s their pitch (with a few edits for brevity and clarity) and then my experience.
Eye fatigue, dry eyes, blurred vision, sensitivity to light, and headaches are something millions of people who sit in front of digital screens all day experience – it’s called Computer Vision Syndrome, but you can even get it staring at any screen.
Designed for prolonged viewing of digital screens, these glasses block harmful blue light, prevent eye fatigue and maintain comfortable levels of humidity to prevent dry eyes. Got an Rx? No prob! We’ll have custom Rx lenses created for you.
On September 29th I opened my first pair of Gunnar optics with my Rx, the Marin glasses. I’ve got a whole unboxing video that was absolutely ruined due to the audio not picking me up talking 4 feet from my Pixel 7 Pro… I’ll see if I can fix that up for inclusion later.
The specs, which I’m lifting from their product page:
KEY FEATURES
- Premium lightweight titanium frame material
- High-quality German spring hinges
- Half-rim design
- GUNNAR patented lens technology
- G-Shield™ Premium lens coating suite
- Blocks harmful blue light and 100% UV
- Low-bridge fit
- Also available in prescription
SPECS: lens width: 54 mm | nose: 16 mm | frame width: 141 mm | temple: 135 mm | weight: 15.9 grams (without packaging)
INCLUDED WITH PURCHASE
- Tri-Fold Glasses Case
- Microfiber Pouch
- Microfiber Cleaning Cloth
- 24-month Warranty
So the first thing I noticed was how light they are. Surprisingly so. Trying them on They were the lightest pair of glasses I think I own, and they’d cut mine to my prescription so instantly the world was clear.
This perhaps was a mistake on my part because my prescription’s focal point is at about six feet and my normal viewing is 4 feet (computer monitor,) and 1.5 feet (phone). Whoops on my part. Eh, I moved back to do most of my testing with them. I only have one monitor up I’m reviewing now (a monoprice unit we’ll be covering later,) so my my experiences on this are limited to my work Samsung, the TCL-55 I’m using as a main screen, a couple of projectors, and my Pixel 8 Pro.
The results
Being a colorblind fellow may be skewing the results, but for me they offered a slightly easier reading of text but as I do some photo and video work as well I kept having to pop them off for that. I can’t color correct for much of anything on a normal day, and with blue light filtering glasses it made it next to impossible… OK, not quite perfect for my use cases. Gaming and outdoors seemed to be where these shine rather than media review. Love the glasses though.
As I’ve never had dry eyes from computers and tvs, possibly because I don’t actually see the blue light correctly, they didn’t really improve my experience with a computer, or a phone.
What I did find was that out in the world I felt like I had hunter vision or something. I was reminded of the advertisements for HD Vision and Blue Blockers (although I never have worn either of those) – the outside world, while colored incorrectly, was sharp. This wasn’t what they were pitched to me for, but I failed repeatedly to have the product work well for the intended use. I really like these outdoors and driving, indoors and on screens they do something my colorblind eyes aren’t appreciating.
With my prescription loaded onto the Marin glasses I can spot a [insert small object at large distance here] – yeah, I can’t really explain it beyond it brings things into sharp focus and are my new favorite driving glasses.
They produce a bunch of comic and gaming themed glasses including some Diablo, Loki, CoD, and Stark Industry frames. Really digging some of the frame styles.
I took them for a ride with me on the Atomi E20 review I did, you can check them out over there. Other than stopping the wind they didn’t have much of a purpose that day, but they were cool.
Wrap-up
Great with my prescription, very light feeling, I didn’t quite get how this could be used for reviewing TVs as the pitch implied due to the blue light spectrum blocking, but dang these are great for me outdoors. They also seem to be extremely good (for me) for playing video games as they cut out a lot of the visual noise. Might just be a colorblind thing though.
You can find the Marin over at GUNNAR Optiks. Pocketables does not get a percentage of any sale. Glasses were given to us by New Era PR. Paul really does dig these and wonders if they work better for media if you’re not colorblind.
