Looking for Prescription (Rx) Goggles?
Why do you need prescription (Rx) ski goggles? Are they worth it?
Ski goggles are the essential equipment in a skier’s arsenal. They protect the eyes and help with visibility. Skiing can be dangerous without them because it is difficult to see where you are going or if there is a cliff coming up ahead. They also help keep your face warm when the temperature drops below freezing. Prescription ski goggles are an excellent alternative for people with glasses or contacts. The goggles have a lens specially made to help you see better in the snow and on the mountain.
In this article, we discuss the common problems during skiing or snowboarding, how they occur, and the ways to prevent them to have the best snow experience.
Why does your goggle fog up?
Fog is troubling you. On the slopes, while you are skiing with perfection and enjoying your time, something begins to cloud your vision that, my friend, is the fog. Our only antagonist prevents us from having an excellent ski.
You might wonder why fog at all. What it is, why it happens in the first place and what are the best measures we can take to get rid of it once and for all.
Before we begin, did you know that more than 80% of snow accidents happen due to poor visibility? Wondering what causes it. Yes, you are right; it’s the fog again.
So what is fog?
If you have ever gone for a jog in the early mornings, I can see you shaking your head left and right. I can understand most of us are not. I can also see the proud 1% priding themselves on it. Coming back to the point, you would see a white misty cloud-like layer around you in those early mornings. It just stays there, hanging just above the ground like a cloud. That, my friend, is fog.
How is fog formed?
Going back to our science class, as you think not again, hang on, let me make it easy for you. Science tells us that water exists commonly in three forms, ice, water, and water vapor ( steam). Water exists everywhere around you, like tiny droplets hanging around you. Don’t worry. Your eyes are working fine; we can’t see it yet. This happens when the atmosphere around us is pretty warm. Mainly during the day time. Thanks to the sun.
Then at night, the atmosphere cools down, and this hanging water droplet turns into liquid instead of gas ( steam ). But it’s not falling yet. It hangs. There are a lot of tiny water droplets that have begun to liquefy. They hang together, dense enough that we can see them with our naked eye.
This happens in every case; when you blow warm air during cold winter, your car’s windshield gets fogged up as it starts to rain. So basically, when warm air meets cold air, the tiny water droplets in warm air get just cold enough to form tiny liquid droplets. Thus accumulates and creates fog.
How fog occurs in ski goggles?
So now you are buckled up in your ski goggles and suit, hoping to have a memorable skiing experience. As you ski, warm moist air forms on the inside part of your google, thanks to sweat around areas of your eyes. The atmosphere, however, is pretty chill. As you have learned above, when moist warm air meets cold air, you get fog. This fog sits inside your lens, obstructing your clear view.
How to keep ski goggles from fogging?
Many of the tips below are focused on
1) Maximising ventilation to reduce the amount of moisture entering the goggles, thus minimizing the temperature difference.
2) Anti-fog coating
3) Proper drying and storage techniques
Quality pair of goggles:
Choose a pair of goggles with well-executed ventilation. So we are now looking for a goggle with a double lens similar to the concept of a double pane window. In a dual lens, we have a space between two lenses which prevents the heat transfer from outside to inside since air is a poor conductor of heat.
Secondly, we need a goggle with a good number of vents for ventilation to occur, thus making the inner side of your lens cool.
Lastly, we need anti-fog-coated lenses as our last defender against fog. This coating makes water particles move away from the lens, allowing light to pass through and maintaining clear visibility.
Goggles like Magnus and Ottho come with patented double lens technology, vents designed by an aerodynamics engineer, and an advanced photochromic lens that prevents fogging from happening in the first place.
Well-ventilated helmet:
Now make sure that the helmet doesn’t block the Google vents. We need a helmet that works well with our goggles. An effective helmet will take air from your goggle inwards and let go of it outwards at the top and back.
Don’t even think of wiping off your lens:
We have all been there before, wiping off our lenses to clear the snow. What happens here is when you wipe, you are damaging your lens as well as removing the anti-fog coating. That’s good work; said so one ever. So use the fiber clothing provided with the goggles for this particular purpose.
Let there not be snow in the helmet:
As you should have already known by now, goggles and helmets work as a single unit to keep your lens from fogging. So whenever you notice the snow in the helmet vents, clear it off.
Other handy tips:
- Don’t keep your goggle on top of your helmet as it causes your lens to fog up thanks to the most air from helmet vents.
- Avoid overdressing as it builds moisture, which in turn might cause fogging.
- Let your goggles air dry at the end of the session.
- Reapply anti-fog coating to your old goggles
Progressive prescription snow goggles? What is it, and who is it for?
Skiers and Snowboarders have always enjoyed the clarity, experience, and comfort of using prescription (RX) ski goggles on the slopes. At snowvision, we offer both single-vision and progressive lenses with our goggles. But how to find out if you need progressives? Buckle up as we go on our journey to find it out.
But what is a progressive lens? How does it differ from the bifocal and trifocal lenses?
Progressives are multifocal lenses that help with distance correction at the top, reading correction at the bottom, and everything else in between. You can ask, but isn’t it the same with the bifocal and trifocal lenses? Here is where the main difference comes from, in a progressive, there is a smoother transition between prescription power as opposed to just dividing the entire lens into multiple powers.
So are progressives always better for you? Let’s get into some details with the pros and cons.
Pros – Progressive prescription snow lens
- You have a distance and nearby clarity during your ski.
- You don’t need to swap another pair of prescription glasses to read your map while using your phone or to see nearby objects.
- At snowvision, we have perfected the art of progressive lenses so that you won’t have any interference with your distance vision and can always experience the ski better.
Cons – Progressive lens
- As with a standard Progressive prescription lens, it takes some time to get used to the distortion when you switch viewing from the top and bottom of your lens to the middle area. But it won’t be an issue if you are used to the progressive lens in your everyday life.
So should you buy a progressive lens during your next ski?
It all comes down to your clarity needs. If you have both near and far-sightedness and don’t want to switch to a prescription lens every time you read a map or use your phone, go for it. But keep in mind the peripheral distortion. It’s better to choose prescription ski goggles with limited peripheral distortion, such as Magnus or Ottho goggles. You can eliminate peripheral distortion using progressive lenses and choose the above goggles.
What makes the Photochromic lens the favorite option?
You are headed off to ski but are unsure about the weather; you have various weather reports, from sunny to overcast. What are you thinking? Which lens am I going to carry? Let me take it all. You pack all of your lenses to ski. But what if, despite the weather conditions, you could have just one lens? What if the lens adjusts itself to the varying weather conditions? Welcome to the world of the photochromic lens. Don’t ever carry three-four lenses each time you ski. Just choose a goggle with a photochromic lens and ski hassle-free.
But you are not sure if you need one, so let me pass on my knowledge of photochromic lenses and what makes them unique!
What are photochromic lenses?
An ever-changing lens, a chameleon lens, or an adjustable lens, whatever you call it, is a photochromic lens that adjusts itself to light, so you always have clear vision. It darkens on contact with UV rays, lightens when the intensity is less, and everything in between.
Pros:
- One lens for all weather conditions,
- Best view despite the changing light conditions.
- Protection against UV rays ( A B C )
Ok, but how does a photochromic lens work?
It all seems Magic, isn’t it? But science has the answer, so let me break it down for you.
Photochromatic or photochromic lenses have light-sensitive molecules inside them. So these molecules change their structure to absorb more or less light. These molecules absorb more light when skiing on a bright day, giving your lens a black tint. And when it gets darker or cloudy, these molecules change shape again so as not to absorb light. This is when your lens becomes transparent.
So is that it? Or is there any types of Photochromatic or photochromic lens?
Yes, they come in different types, the common being plastic photochromic or glass photochromic lenses. The difference is, of course, the lens material and the type of molecules they have inside.
Plastic photochromic lenses are more popular these days thanks to their versatility. They have an added advantage over photochromic glass lenses.
How quickly do photochromic lenses change their color, or how fast do they work?
Usually, the lens takes from 30 to 60 seconds to shift color. But again, it depends mainly on external factors like temperature. When it’s colder, the lens becomes dark quicker than becoming lighter. Because the molecules need more heat to change their structure, in summer, it’s vice versa. It would take a bit longer for the lens to get darkened.
Do photochromic lenses ever wear out?
Yes, they do. As your lens gets older, the molecules get less reactive to light and would take longer to change their structures. Resulting in a longer switching lens time. The top quality lens used in goggles like Magnus and Ottho will easily last three years. These goggles also come with other benefits. Read more about them here.
Do you need a photochromic lens for ski goggles?
Considering the above-mentioned factors, it’s clear that photochromic lenses are the better options, especially for goggles or snow goggles. Coupled with the essential features of ski goggles, they are the better ones on the market.