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If you’ve ever suffered from dry, irritated eyes or struggled to fall asleep after a long day of staring at your computer, you may have been tempted to purchase a pair of blue-light-blocking glasses. Blue light is found in nearly every light source, including the sun, and excessive exposure can harm your vision or prevent you from falling asleep.
But will filtering out blue light help with the digital eye strain that comes from extended time in front of a screen? Rahul Khurana, an ophthalmologist and former clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, says that digital eye strain and the negative effects of blue light on your eyes are two separate concerns. “We keep on thinking about blue light from our computers and smartphones, but the reality is that we get more exposure to blue light from the sun.” Essentially, it’s not the blue light that’s making your eyes feel bad after a day of staring at the computer. It’s staring at a screen for hours without breaks. That’s why Khurana doesn’t recommend any special eyewear for daily computer use. “Ultimately, I’m not really sure how it’s going to help with digital eye strain, which is what’s bothering people,” he says, explaining that the eye strain most people experience isn’t necessarily digital. It can occur “whenever you focus on anything — from reading a book, looking at a screen, or watching TV.” It can be alleviated by shifting your eyes every 20 minutes or so to something that’s 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds, he says. If that doesn’t help, Khurana recommends artificial tears to help lubricate dry eyes. In the end, he says you don’t need to wear blue-light-blocking glasses during the day.
However, our bodies associate blue light with daytime, so exposure to it when you’re trying to go to bed “pushes our internal clocks later, so that it’s harder to fall asleep and harder to wake up in the morning,” says Cathy Goldstein, associate professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Sleep Disorders Center.
In a perfect world, you’d start to avoid blue light from screens four hours before going to bed. But if you can’t tear yourself away from Instagram or the dreaded doomscroll before turning in, blue-light-blocking glasses can help. To find the most effective and stylish options, we scoured the internet and spoke with eye doctors and sleep experts about what they recommend.
Update on December 17, 2024: Reinstated best-overall pick, which is back in stock; replaced Look Optic blue-light-blocking Sullivan readers (no longer available) with another style from the same company; updated prices and checked stock for all other products.
What we’re looking for
Blue-light-blocking capability
All light is measured in nanometers (nm), and blue-light wavelengths that can have the most impact on your melatonin levels (and thus affect your sleep) range from 400 to 500 nm, though blue-light wavelengths start at 200 nm. Blue-light-blocking glasses work by reflecting those wavelengths away from the lenses to stop them from reaching your eyes. (Note that, despite emitting blue light, most consumer tech is not harmful and there is no scientific evidence that digital devices can damage your eyes.)
Many blue-light-blocking glasses have an orange or yellow tint that is supposed to absorb the blue light while allowing other light to pass through. Generally, the darker the lenses on a pair of blue-light-blocking glasses, the more blue light is blocked. While there are clear or less obviously tinted blue-light-blocking lenses, they won’t filter as much blue light as darker options. If you’re working with visuals, whether video or photo editing, illustrating, or graphic design, it’s best to avoid glasses with more orange hues and do that work during the day.
Glasses with lenses that wrap around the front of your face will prevent more blue light from getting in, whereas traditional glasses allow light to hit your eyes from all sides.
Anti-glare coating
Blue-light-blocking glasses may have an anti-glare coating, which decreases the amount of light reflecting from your glasses to further reduce eye strain and make them more comfortable to use. This is especially handy during video calls when people are going to be looking at you for long periods of time, as that light gets reflected right back at your screen and can make your eyes look weird when on camera.
Frame material
There are different frame materials to choose from including wire, plastic, and acetate. If you don’t already wear prescription or reading glasses, any pair of blue-light-blocking glasses will be easy to pick up and use. But if you already have glasses, you’ll want to look for either a prescription pair, reading glasses with blue-light-blocking capabilities, or something that will clip on or fit over the top of your existing glasses.
Prescription compatibility
While you don’t need a prescription to get a pair of these glasses, some blue-light-blocking lenses and frames work with prescription lenses, so you won’t have to deal with having two pairs. Other pairs can be worn over a pair of prescription lenses, or clipped directly onto them.
Best blue-light-blocking glasses overall
Infield’s aptly named Terminator UV-400 glasses are great for comfort and blocking out nearly 100 percent of blue light. They’re cheaper than most other glasses with orange lenses I found, and their wraparound design provides more coverage for your eyes than lenses that cover only the front.
Unlike the NoCry glasses, below, these don’t totally cover the sides of your face, and there’s a slight gap at the bottom so some blue light may get in. They’re more stylish than the NoCrys, but those can be placed over another pair of glasses, while these cannot.
I wore them at night while watching the latest episode of The Boys and getting some writing done, and while the orange hue was noticeable on both screens, it didn’t look so terrible that I wanted to take off the glasses. In exchange for adding an orange filter to everything, the Infields did make both screens feel less harsh to look at, but I found myself having to squint for a second or two after removing them.
Best customizable blue-light-blocking glasses
Blue-light-blocking capability: Clear lenses that block 100 percent of UV rays | Anti-glare coating: Yes | Frame material: Wire or plastic | Prescription compatible: Yes
If you’re picky about your frames, Warby Parker has a large collection of unique styles to suit any face, and you can do a virtual try-on of any frame using the company’s app. After doing this myself, I got a pair of Ellington frames (in gold) to test out. I’m picky about my glasses, as I feel most accentuate the parts of my face I don’t like, but these frames looked the same on me in person as they did in my virtual try-on. They’re also comfy to wear, and the pair I’ve been testing (which only had blue-light-blocking, not prescription lenses) made things like reading on my iPad or watching a movie at night noticeably less problematic for falling asleep.
One caveat: Even if you’re ordering a nonprescription pair, any pair of these glasses will cost you at least $150, which is pricey. I’d recommend buying these only if you plan on wearing your glasses frequently.
Best blue-light-blocking reading glasses
Blue-light-blocking capability: Clear lenses that block nearly 90 percent of blue light | Anti-glare coating: None | Frame material: Plastic | Prescription compatible : No
Look Optic is a direct-to-consumer brand that makes handsome reading glasses (the design team is made up of Oliver Peoples alumni). It offers blue-light protection in some of its most popular styles — either with magnification or without. These particular frames come in two colors, and you can choose a magnification between +0.0 and +3.0. If these frames don’t match your particular style, Look Optic has five other similarly priced styles.
Best clip-on blue-light-blocking glasses
Blue-light-blocking capability: Yellow- or orange-tinted lenses that block from 87 to 99 percent of blue light | Anti-glare coating: Yes | Frame material: Metal clip | Prescription compatible: No
If you already wear prescription glasses, you might be interested in blue-light-blocking clip-ons, like this pair, that attach to your existing frames. The yellow shuts out 87 percent of blue light. The orange blocks 99 percent. One enthusiastic Amazon reviewer reports that they “fit securely onto my night glasses without having an obnoxious or clunky nose guard that I’ve seen in other competitive brands” and do “a great job staying in place on my frames.” Another reviewer reports experiencing significantly less eye strain while watching TV or using a computer and says the glasses allow them to sleep better at night.
Best fit-over blue-light-blocking glasses
Blue-light-blocking capability: Orange-tinted lenses that block 100 percent of blue light | Anti-glare coating: Yes | Frame material: Plastic | Prescription compatible: No, but goes over prescription glasses
NoCry’s blue-light-blocking glasses are great for blocking out nearly 100 percent of blue light. They’re cheaper than most other glasses with orange lenses that I could find, and their wrap-around design totally covers the sides of your face and leaves very little gap at the bottom, providing more coverage for your eyes than lenses that cover only the front. They also have enough room to fit over prescription or reading glasses, though you can wear them on their own as well.
I wore the NoCrys over a pair of Warby Parker readers and found them to be as effective as Infield’s glasses in dampening the harshness of my screen’s backlights. Despite having two layers of lenses over my face, I never noticed any issues with glare and found working on my laptop just as pleasant as with the similarly tinted Infield glasses. And though I was wearing two pairs of glasses, the added heft wasn’t that noticeable, as the NoCrys aren’t heavy at all and the rubber coating on the frames is comfortable.
Best blue-light-blocking glasses for kids
Blue-light-blocking capability: Yellow-tinted lenses that block 50 percent of blue light | Anti-glare coating: Yes | Frame material: Plastic | Prescription compatible: Yes
If you’re worried about screens affecting your kid’s sleep schedule, blue-light-blocking glasses are made for children’s faces too. They can help kids with the same side effects of screen time that many adults experience — namely, poor sleep and migraines. This pair from Felix Gray comes in two sizes — small (ages 4 to 8) and large (ages 9 to 13) — and four colors.
As with blue-light-blocking glasses for adults, those designed for kids won’t solve issues related to eye strain. “If you’re looking at a book for five hours a day, you’re going to have a lot of eye strain, and there’s no blue light coming from that,” says Milan Ranka, an ophthalmologist at Pediatric Ophthalmic Consultants in New York City. A better way for kids to relieve eye strain, according to Ranka, is to follow the same guidance given to adults. “For every 20 minutes you’re doing something, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds,” says Ranka. “I tell my 6-, 7-, and 8-year-old patients to look out the window every 15 to 20 minutes. Look for a tree and blink your eyes a few times.”
Our experts
• Cathy Goldstein, associate professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Sleep Disorders Center
• Rahul Khurana, ophthalmologist and former clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology
• Milan Ranka, ophthalmologist at Pediatric Ophthalmic Consultants
Additional reporting by Maxine Builder and Jordan Bowman.
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