Gaming glasses are quickly becoming popular amongst casual and pro gamers alike—and for good reason: Gaming glasses are an indispensable tool in a gamer’s arsenal offering eye protection while maximizing performance.
If you’re unfamiliar with gaming glasses or have some questions about them, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll provide a comprehensive overview of gaming glasses, including what they are, how they work, why they’re important, and so much more. Let’s get into it!
The Basics
Value and Price
How To Wear
Addressing Health Concerns
Performance
Choosing Your Perfect Pair
Gaming Glasses: The Basics
What are gaming glasses?
You may have noticed that most professional gamers wear glasses with yellow-tinted lenses. These are gaming glasses and they’re designed for use while playing video games on a computer or console gaming monitor.
I get questions regularly on stream about why I wear the yellow glasses. My @GUNNAROptiks glasses help block blue light and my eye doctor recommended them for me since I am a full-time computer professional.
I no longer get headaches or fatigue after a long session.
— Jeff Fritz (@csharpfritz) December 30, 2021
What are gaming glasses good for?
Prolonged staring at digital screens and corresponding exposure to artificial blue light is not natural. As such, when playing video games, your eye muscles strain to focus and keep up with the ongoing demands, leading to a collection of symptoms, such as blurred vision, headaches, eye fatigue and dry eyes.
Gaming glasses were developed to address these issues while simultaneously enhancing your visual experience and performance. Let’s take a look at the key features of gaming glasses:
- Anti-reflective coating: The lenses of gaming glasses have a special coating that reduces reflections and glare from your screen. This feature can result in an increased ability to focus, quicker reaction times, and decreased visual stress.
- Blue light protection: Digital devices, such as computer monitors, TVs, smartphones, and iPads, emit artificial blue light. Just as sunglasses are designed to reduce exposure to harmful UV rays, blue light glasses for gaming are designed to reduce exposure to blue light while staring at a computer or TV screen for long periods of time. Gaming glasses’ yellow-tinted lenses diminish the amount of blue light that reaches your eyes, which serves to sharpen contrast, protect your eyes, and reduce sleep disturbances.
- Slight magnification: To reduce squinting, prevent eye strain, and aid with focusing, gaming glasses have a small degree of magnifying power built into the lenses.
Why should you cop a pair of @GUNNAROptiks for yourself?!
#gunnar #gamer #twitch pic.twitter.com/XO7BC0STmR
— Gr33dyJay (@Gr33dyJay) September 24, 2021
What is the difference between gaming glasses and blue light glasses?
Gaming glasses are a type of blue light glasses, meaning gaming glasses usually offer some level of blue light protection. Another type of blue light glasses are computer glasses. What’s the difference? Why are there specific blue light glasses for gamers?
Gaming glasses typically have specific design features to ensure comfort and meet the physical demands of gaming versus just those that use a computer for work or leisure. For example, GUNNAR’s gaming glasses include the following design features:
- Lightweight frame materials for comfort over time
- A wrap-around frame design that limits air currents to maintain humidity
- Panoramic lens design for peripheral viewing
- Ergonomic temples for headset compatibility
Gaming Glasses: Value and Price
Do gaming glasses really work?
While we don’t have concrete evidence that gaming glasses help you game better (yet!), we do know that wearing gaming (or computer) glasses improves visual performance. They achieve this by providing slight magnification, diminishing blue light exposure, and lessening glare. Together, these effects reduce visual stress and, consequently, improve your visual performance.
How much do gaming glasses cost?
The cost of gaming glasses varies depending on the brand, retailer and the quality of the lens and frame. You can find cheap gaming glasses for as low as $20, or designer options that cost upwards of $200. Most gaming glasses, however, cost between $50 to $130 per pair. GUNNAR gaming glasses fall in this price range and offer premium quality and long-lasting comfort, as well as protection from digital screens and artificial blue light.
While these prices might seem like a steep investment for some people, with proper care, one pair of gaming glasses can last several years. That’s years of eye protection and enhanced gaming performance for a one-time cost as low as $50 for a high-quality pair.
Can you get prescription gaming glasses?
If you’ve been reading this article and wondering if gaming glasses are available with prescription lenses, the answer is yes! Some companies offer gaming glasses with prescription lenses, including GUNNAR, which offers a wide assortment of prescription gaming glasses in different styles.
Are prescription gaming glasses worth it?
Most gaming glasses aren’t designed to be worn on top of your prescription eyeglasses. If you require a prescription and are interested in wearing gaming glasses, investing in a pair of prescription gaming glasses is the way to go. With just one pair of glasses, you’ll be getting your required prescription and all of the benefits of gaming glasses, including blue light filtration, glare reduction, eye strain relief, and enhanced visual performance.
Gaming Glasses: How to Wear
Can you wear gaming glasses all day?
One of the most common questions people ask about gaming glasses is, “Can I wear them all the time?” The answer to this question really depends on the unique features of your gaming glasses. General glasses with blue light filtering lenses can be worn all day, but are only really needed when you’re playing video games or doing other activities that involve staring at a digital screen for long periods of time.
Some blue light glasses, however, have extra features that would make them unsuitable for all-day wear. For example, GUNNAR blue light glasses feature a signature focusing power called GUNNAR-Focus, which aids natural focusing for sharper vision at close distances. This feature is designed to be used while viewing screens up to two feet away, such as when doing computer work or gaming. When glasses with GUNNAR-Focus are worn when not using digital devices, some people experience unpleasant effects like dizziness or headaches.
Can you wear gaming glasses outside?
Gaming glasses are really only intended for indoor use while playing video games. A better outdoor eyewear option would be GUNNAR blue light sunglasses, which have a higher level of blue light protection and are engineered to improve visual clarity while viewing digital screens outdoors.
Can you wear gaming glasses with contacts?
If you enjoy the freedom of wearing contact lenses, it would be quite annoying to take them out every time you wanted to use your blue light gaming glasses. Thankfully, you don’t have to.
GUNNAR offers gaming glasses with or without prescription lenses. If you wear contacts, simply choose non-prescription gaming glasses with GUNNAR-Focus.
Gaming Glasses: Addressing Health Concerns
Do video games cause myopia?
Myopia (nearsightedness) is the most common refractive error (eye focusing disorder), affecting more than 40 percent of Americans—a number that is rapidly rising. This condition, in which close objects appear clearly, but far ones appear blurry, is forecasted to affect about half of the world population by 2050.
Some eye experts believe the rising rates are due to people spending large amounts of time engaged in close-up work, such as reading or using smartphones and computers, as well as lack of outdoor exposure.
While there is currently no direct link between video games and myopia, it’s possible that the prolonged, close-up screen time involved in playing video games could contribute to myopia.
As such, it’s important to do what you can to protect your eyes and reduce your visual stress. That includes wearing blue light gaming glasses, sitting a bit further away from the screen, taking regular breaks while gaming, and remembering to frequently blink!
Do gaming glasses help with headaches?
When you engage in lengthy video game sessions, you may experience headaches caused by prolonged screen time. This is because viewing a computer or digital screen often makes your eyes work harder. By easing the stress of extended screen time, gaming glasses help prevent headaches and other symptoms associated with computer vision syndrome.
Do gaming glasses ruin your eyes?
When trying something new, it’s normal to want to ensure that the product you’re using is safe. You can rest assured that gaming glasses will not harm your eyes in any way. In fact, when used as intended, they only offer benefits—no negative side effects!
Blue light gaming glasses serve to enhance your performance during long gaming sessions and protect your eyes by blocking blue light, slightly magnifying your vision, and reducing glare and reflections. The result? Healthier eyes and a visual edge that can help you lead your team to victory.
Is it safe for kids to wear gaming glasses?
It’s absolutely safe for children to wear gaming glasses. In fact, doing so offers many benefits because children’s eyes are even more vulnerable than adults’ eyes to the effects of blue light, as children’s eyes are still developing and have little natural protection. Kids also have larger pupils than adults, which allows their eyes to take in more light.. While the full effects of blue light on children’s (and adults’) eyes are still being studied, research shows that blue light negatively affects children’s sleep and may contribute to damaging retinal cells, potentially leading to macular degeneration.
Gaming glasses are an easy (and stylish!) way to protect your children’s eyes from blue light, reduce symptoms of computer vision syndrome, and enhance their gaming performance. Gaming glasses for children are a win all around!
Gaming Glasses: Performance
Are yellow lenses better than clear lenses?
If you’ve been in the market for gaming eyewear, you’ve probably seen different color lens tints. At GUNNAR, we use GUNNAR Blue Light Filter (GBLF) to label the blue light filtering strength of our glasses, which accounts for the different tints. The higher the GBLF, the more the lens tint will shield against blue light.
GUNNAR offers gaming glasses with a GBLF of either 35 (clear) or 65 (amber). So, which option is better?
One is not necessarily better than the other. It simply depends on your unique needs. The amber lens tint is the optimal choice for protection and performance while gaming for extended periods of time. Clear lenses, on the other hand, are better suited for people who only casually use digital devices.
Do gaming glasses make everything yellow?
You might be wondering, “Does the amber tint make everything appear yellow?” That’s a great question! Blue light gaming glasses do give digital screens a slight yellowish tint, but it’s hardly noticeable. More importantly, blue light gaming glasses filter the harsh blue tint out of the monitor screen, which improves color contrast, boosts viewing clarity, and allows you to see colors more vividly and clearly.
Is it bad to wear glasses while playing video games?
No, it is certainly not bad to wear glasses while gaming, however, it’s important to wear the right kind of glasses—ones that are specifically designed for gaming. That’s because gaming glasses take all aspects of performance into consideration, whereas a regular pair of glasses don’t.
As such, gaming glasses will help you keep up with fast-paced games, reduce glare, protect your eyes from blue light, and provide enhanced definition for all of the games you love playing.
Gaming Glasses: Choosing Your Perfect Pair
At this point, you’re likely wondering, “Okay, so what are the best gaming glasses?” There are several gaming glasses on the market, however, GUNNAR is the world’s leading creator and manufacturer of gaming eyewear. In fact, GUNNAR is the only patented gaming eyewear recommended by doctors to protect and enhance your vision.
GUNNAR’s patented lens technology addresses all issues associated with digital eye strain and exposure to artificial blue light, including, dry, irritated eyes, blurry vision, headaches, eyestrain and fatigue. The result is improved eye health, clarity, focus, and performance. You can learn more about GUNNAR technology here and explore GUNNAR’s full gaming glasses collection here.
The bottom line
According to the Vision Council of America, 70 percent of U.S. adults experience digital eye strain as a result of the increasing use of digital devices. Much more than a mere trend, fad, or accessory, gaming glasses provide essential protection against the daily threats that your digital screens pose.
GUNNAR engineers glasses that help reduce digital eye strain and block blue light, providing you with protection that gives you better eyes, better health, and ultimately, a better you.
Visit GUNNAR’s website to find your perfect pair of gaming glasses and be sure to check out our incredible ambassadors who rely on us to protect their eyes while doing what they love: gaming.
Protect your eyes and enhance your gaming performance by joining the GUNNAR family today!