focalise eyewear blog

Introducing Focalise Eyewear

Focalise Eyewear is an online prescription eyewear retailer based in the Snowy Mountains region of Australia.  We sell quality prescription glasses, including lenses, case and cloth from $49 through our website focalise.com.au. We also carry semi-rimless frames, rimless frames, bendable frames and designer brand frames.  We can meet most prescription needs and can even put lenses in ski and diving masks.  We're always happy to discuss customer needs through any of the following ways:

• email either of us - robert@focalise.com.au or gemma@focalise.com.au
• telephone us on 1300 793 530
• fax us on 1300 793 580
• write to us at PO Box 350 Cooma NSW 2630 Australia
• or, of course, comment on our blog!

Why blog about the business?  Because we see it as a great way of connecting with you - our customers  - and starting conversations with you - about your needs, about how we perform and anything else you think of.  We also see it as a way of telling the story of Focalise Eyewear - what it's all about and what we are trying to achieve.

We look forward to starting some conversations with you!

What does Sphere really mean?

Just a quick one to deal with an issue in a recent customer order.  The customer requested reading glasses but entered a Sphere correction that started with a "-".

The “Sphere” column indicates your level of long or shortsightedness, a “+” indicating Hypermetropia (long-sightedness) and a “-“ indicating Myopia (short-sightedness).

For reading glasses we'd expect to see a "+" measurement for the Sphere column or a measurement in the ADD column.

More on Lenses

I just wanted to add a little more information about the types of lenses that are commonly available (and that'll you'll be able to order at Focalise Eyewear).

Standard plastic CR39 - we use 1.49 index lenses as standard - these lenses are ideal for most prescriptions - for powers that are beyond +3.00 or -3.00, these lenses may give a distorted affect.

Plastic 1.56 - our standard thin lenses - again should be fine for prescriptions with powers that are between +3.00 and -3.00.

Plastic 1.61 - ideal for powers between +5.00 and -5.00.  These are more than 25% thinner than our standard plastic lenses.

Lenses Explained

I had a question the other day about different lenses, so I thought I post a little bit of information about the subject.

Lenses are either made of plastic or glass - most lenses sold today are plastic.  Usually it's only when extremely thin lenses are required for very high prescriptions that glass may be the better option.  Otherwise plastic is the more practical and lighter choice.

The different lens numbers (1.49, 1.56, 1.61, etc.) refer to the refractive index of a lens - it's a measure of how the lens bends light.

More on Prescriptions

Following on from the last post, there were a few other things I thought I might add.

In case you weren't sure, the higher the numbers the stronger the prescription.                

Another thing. Your glasses prescription and contact lens prescription will differ slightly. This is due to the contact lens being physically closer to your eye, usually resulting in a slightly different prescription to your glasses. Also your contact lens prescription doesn’t always show your degree of astigmatism.               

The following is an example of a prescription:

What Does My Prescription Mean?

It's a question we get asked regularly, so I thought I would give you a quick summary of what we need to see to process your prescription.

First, make sure you have an up-to-date prescription (not more than two years old).  Then, make sure that the prescription includes the following measurements:

Specsavers are coming...Beware!

Specsavers are in Australia, having just opened stores in Melbourne.  They're massive in the UK and now they're over here to wrestle part of the billion dollar market out of the previously dominant hands of Luxottica (otherwise known as OPSM, Budget Eyewear and others).  But will Aussie consumers be getting a good deal with this extra competition?