1. What are pinhole glasses?
Standard pinhole glasses consist of a set of plastic or metal frames and plastic or aluminium lenses punched through with several rows of tiny holes placed close together. All pinhole glasses may be used without a prescription, so the same pair can be used by anyone, whether they are nearsighted or farsighted.

2. How do pinholes work?
For a person to see images clearly, the light rays entering the eye must come to a focus on the retina at the back of the eye. People who have blurry vision, for whatever reason, cannot see images clearly because the light rays entering the eye focus either in front of the retina or behind it.
Pinholes work by permitting into the eye, only the rays which pass through the centre portion of the pupil, blocking out all the rest. Although this produces a slightly darker image, all of the light rays that enter the eye focus directly on the retina. There is no blur, just a clear, focused image. To most people it seems like magic !

3. Who do pinhole glasses work for?
Almost anyone who has blurry vision can see clearly with pinholes. They work for people who suffer from eye strain, nearsightedness, farsightedness, cataracts, astigmatism, and even for people who have farsightedness associated with middle-age (presbyopia). They do not work well for people who suffer from visual defects greater than 6 diopters, and they are not useful for people who suffer from glaucoma or macular degeneration, since these conditions are caused by damaged optic nerves.

4. How long have pinhole glasses been around?
Pinholes are not new. It is believed that they were first conceived by a scientist named Scheiner in 1573. More recently, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Patent No 1959915 for ‘lensless spectacles’ to a Mr Charles Guthie of Pittsburgh on May 22nd 1934.
They were then described as ‘a device for perfecting impaired vision’ by means of ‘an opaque disc having the entire surface provided with a series of circular holes’.
Smooth lens pinhole glasses were developed in 1999.

5. How are pinhole glasses different from regular glasses?
The continual use of eyeglasses or contact lenses can cause the eyes to become weaker and weaker, and this is why one pair can be used for only so long before it has to be changed for ‘stronger’ ones. Wearing eyeglasses for long hours in front of a computer screen can cause eye strain, sore eyes and headaches. Pinhole glasses can never have those effects, no matter how long you wear them, and pinhole glasses can never weaken a person’s eyesight. There are no ‘stronger’ or ‘weaker’ pinhole glasses. They are all the same.

6. Can pinholes really let you see as clearly as eyeglasses do?
Definitely. We have all been brainwashed by the optical industry into believing that people with blurry vision can see clearly again only with the use of specially made glass lenses prescribed by an eye doctor. That is not true. Even people who have worn glasses or contact lenses for years can see images clearly with a pair of pinhole glasses.

7. Who should use pinhole glasses?
They can be used by anyone who has blurry vision, young or old, except those who require visual correction greater than 6 diopters. There is no upper or lower age limit for wearing pinholes. They can be worn by small school children who develop myopia (nearsightedness) due to exscessive reading or by people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, or older who have presbyopia, the farsightedness which develops with middle age. For people who need only a slight vision correction, the effect of the pinholes may be almost unnoticeable. Generally speaking, the more blurriness of vision a person has, the more noticeable will be the effects of the pinhole glasses.

8. How should pinhole glasses be used?
The most common uses for pinhole sight correctors are:
As substitutes for reading glasses.
For using the computer, to reduce eye strain caused from staring at a monitor.
By school children who have trouble seeing the board in the classroom.
For watching TV.
For watching movies in movie theatres.

9. Are there times when pinholes should not be used?
Yes. Because of the reduced peripheral vision (side vision) that is caused by the dark lenses, pinholes are best used when seated or standing still. They are not recommended to be used when operating a motor vehicle or walking around.

10. Can pinhole glasses be used just like sunglasses?
Standard pinhole lenses consist of little holes in opaque lenses, provide no UV protection and should never be used in bright sunlight.

11. How do your prices compare?
Our prices are better than competitive.

12. How are your pinholes different from other brands?
Our pinhole glasses feature high quality, contemporary sunglass frames instead of the flimsy frames normally used for pinhole glasses. The cheap, unattractive appearance of all other brands is largely responsible for pinhole glasses never having been taken seriously by the public.

13. Is it true that pinhole glasses ‘restore’ a person’s eyesight?
Although many vendors of pinhole glasses make such a claim, research has simply not yet shown that using pinholes will restore a person’s vision to normal. What is true is that pinhole glasses will help to preserve a person’s eyesight and prevent further deterioration from taking place.

14. How distracting are the little holes?
Looking through rows of tiny holes is obviously not the same as looking through a clear glass lens, but for most people, the benefits of using the pinholes far outweigh the inconvenience of having to look through the little holes. Rather than seeing actual holes in front of your eyes, it is very similar to looking through a black veil or a kind of mesh. Particularly when used with an illuminated screen such as a computer monitor or TV screen, the ‘veil’ is hardly noticeable after a couple of minutes.

15. Why haven’t pinhole glasses become more popular before now?
Three main reasons can explain this:

Flimsy appearance and unattractive styling of pinhole glasses.
Up to 1999 nearly all pinhole glasses were produced by factories in mainland China. Designers cared only about functionality at a low cost and gave no thought to styling. The result was that pinhole glasses looked like the kind of free plastic toy one might find in a cereal box. No one took them seriously and it was easy for optical industry personnel to call them ‘gimmicks’.

Unscrupulous marketing practices by vendors hoping to cash in on what they saw as a miraculous breakthrough in vision correction.
Described as a ‘scientific breakthrough’ by scientists and vision care specialists alike when they first came out in 1934, fortune seekers in the U.S. hoping to capitalize on the invention used whatever means necessary to make a sale. They promised immediate return to normal vision after only a short time of use. Most claims could not be substantiated and resulted in those operations being closed down by the U.S Food and Drug Administration. Pinhole glasses production stopped in the U.S but continued overseas, primarily in China.

Enormous opposition by the powerful optical industry, including eyeglass manufacturers and the medical personnel who prescribe them whose livelihoods were at stake.
Pinhole glasses have been systematically kept out of the hands of the public by the successful efforts of the optical industry which still stands to lose billions of pounds each year if people begin to reduce their dependency on prescription lenses and start using pinholes instead.
Standing to lose billions of pounds in sales of eyeglasses and contact lenses by the potential popularity of pinhole glasses, powerful organisations of optometrists and opthalmologists did everything they could to keep them out of the hands of the public. The fact is that while pinhole glasses could never completely replace prescription lenses as a means of vision correction, a substantial percentage of people who are fitted with eyeglasses would be just as well off with a pair of pinhole glasses, a one time purchase. However, a patient once fitted with a pair of glasses is almost sure to become a regular customer, as their eyes weaken and they need to come back for a pair after pair of stronger lenses. It is a truly lucrative business.
To ensure pinhole glasses would never become popular, optometrists regularly ridiculed any notion that pinhole glasses were a legitimate form of vision correction.

16. Do you have any metal framed smooth lens styles?
At one time we did not sell metal framed pinhole glasses but due to customer requests we now stock them.