“So which power do I actually order?”

We say

The 1.5. Whatever the strongest power is that you need to read up close, that’s the one we want.

I know that sounds backwards if you’re buying these for the computer. Stay with me, because the reason is the whole product.

Always the reading power. Never the computer power.

We say

Because right now you’re doing the lens’s job for it.

You own two pairs. A 1.5 for the book and a 1.0 for the screen, and you swap between them, or you push one down your nose and look over the top. That’s a workaround for a lens that only ever focused at one distance.

An EV lens does the swapping itself. Your full reading power sits at the bottom of the lens, where your eyes go when you look down at something close. Then we ease the power off as you go up, based on how far you told us you want to see. By the time you’re looking straight ahead at your monitor, the lens has already handed you roughly that 1.0 you were reaching for.

Order the 1.0 and you’ve given up your reading vision to get something the lens was going to hand you anyway.

Your reading power goes at the bottom. The lens eases it off going up.

We say

Arithmetic, mostly. The further away something is, the less magnification it takes to see it, and it falls off about as fast as the distance grows.

If you read at a 2.0, that’s a book at roughly twenty inches. Move out to your screen at about three feet and you need about half of that. Out at six feet, across the desk, about a quarter.

You don’t have to work any of this out. You tell us two things, what you read at and how far you want to see, and we build the lens around those two answers. But it’s worth knowing the shape of it, because it explains the next part.

Double the distance, roughly half the power.

We say

Because of the corridor. This is the part that usually gets skipped, and it’s the part that makes the decision for you.

When a lens has to focus at more than one distance, those distances get stacked top to bottom. Close at the bottom, far at the top. The clear path running between them is what we call the corridor. Step off it left or right and things go soft.

Here’s the trade. The further out you ask the lens to reach, the narrower that corridor gets. Bring the far end in closer and the corridor opens up, and you get more of the lens to actually use.

Range and corridor are connected, and there’s no lens where they aren’t, which is why the first thing I ask is how far you need to see. The distance you don’t need comes back to you as a wider corridor.

The further in you bring your range, the wider your lane through the lens.

We say

It’s the narrowest one. Whether that makes it the wrong lens depends entirely on where you are. It’s the right one outside, or driving, or on a trail, where you glance down at your phone and then look up at the road. It skips the middle on purpose, so a laptop at arm’s length falls outside what it’s built for.

It’s the wrong lens for eight hours at a desk, because it’s holding on to distance you aren’t using there. Keep that distance and none of it can come back to you as width.

So don’t pick the one with the biggest number. Pick the one that matches where you spend your hours, and the lens will be wide where you’re looking.

Pick the range your hours are in, and the corridor is wide where you’re looking.

We say

Fair. And you’re not wrong about them, so I’m not going to tell you that you are.

A standard progressive reader takes you all the way out to the horizon whether you asked for it or not. Reaching that far leaves the narrowest corridor there is, and you’re then living in it at every distance, all day, including the ones you use. That’s the head tilting and the hunting.

We’re doing the opposite. We ask where you spend your day, and we stop the lens there. The distance you don’t need comes back to you as a wider corridor. That’s why EV6 is the widest lens we make.

And then it’s cut to your measurements here in California, one pair at a time, rather than stamped out by the thousand. That part matters too. But the reason it feels different when you put it on is the trade.

The distance you don’t need comes back to you as a wider corridor.

We say

No. And I’d rather tell you that now than after they arrive.

Nobody can make one lens that’s clear at every distance and wide everywhere at once. The trade is real for us too. What we can do is let you choose which side of it you want, and that’s why there are three.

Three ranges, so you can pick the one your day is in.