Sponsored by SportifEye

By Linda Conlin, ABOC, NCLE

High performance eyewear is essential gear that athletes willingly invest in, just as they invest in their other expensive gear. Still, it takes a state-of-the-art digital optical lab equipped with advanced technology in freeform design, surfacing, coating and finishing to deliver the very best in sports performance eyewear.

SportifEye Optics is just that lab. Founded in 2017 and based in southern California, the founders of SportifEye built a state-of-the-art optical lab. Inspired by their own experiences as athletes, they have fulfilled their mission to provide superior, custom-made prescription eyewear to enhance visual performance and appearance. As a cutting-edge full-service digital laboratory, SportifEye pushes the boundaries of correction and protection in prescription, sport and safety eyewear. Their specialty is making customized prescriptions in high-wrapped frames. In addition, every lens is personalized based on the wearer’s visual needs and fitting parameters.

There are moments in our lives that require specific lenses to meet specific visual challenges and none more than the eyewear worn by the athlete.

Think about all that sports performance eyewear must deliver:

  • Excellent dynamic vision, the ability to see moving objects clearly.
  • Excellent vision tracking, the ability to follow the track of a moving object.
  • Superb depth perception, the ability to judge the distance and speed of objects.
  • Exceptional contrast sensitivity, the ability to detect subtle differences in shading and patterns.
  • Lenses must accommodate rapid changes in the focal distance so that the athlete can bring objects at different distances into focus fast.
  • Wide and clear peripheral zones, so the athlete has excellent image stability and undistorted peripheral vision.

High-performance prescription eyewear needs to be lightweight and impact-resistant, with the outstanding coverage of wrap frames. While the high base curve of wrap frames is a challenge for some labs, SportifEye lab specializes in prescription eyewear in high base frames. It requires dedicated expertise to craft eyewear in these frames due to optics, lens thickness and retention challenges. The best optics and desired prescription can only be achieved through digital lens optimization and wrap compensation by utilizing advanced digital design technology.

Peripheral vision is critical for sports performance and safety, which is why SportifEye uses advanced digital designs to minimize oblique aberrations point by point, providing broader and sharper fields of view. Oblique aberrations appear when the wearer is looking away from the lens optical center at an oblique angle. In those cases, the image does not focus on the fovea, resulting in defocus, blur and reduced visual acuity. SportifEye designs utilize Digital Ray-Path® Technology, an advanced three-dimensional calculation model that considers the actual position of the lens and the natural movements of the human eye. The result of this innovative calculation method is a personalized lens delivering better vision across the lens surface.

SportifEye Sport provides a fully personalized progressive design specially optimized for sports and outdoor activities for the presbyopic athlete. Dynamic vision is the key to success in outdoor environments. Sport lens designs provide an expanded distance visual field by optimizing and minimizing oblique aberration in the periphery. As with single vision, this integration offers wearers high visual acuity in all gaze directions, including intermediate and near, providing enjoyable and natural vision. SportifEye offers a complete line of lens enhancements to improve durability, safety, optical performance and overall aesthetics. With an in-house R&D lab, their coating engineers design durable coatings to enhance the lens performance and increase the longevity of the athlete’s eyewear. Lenses have a durable scratch-resistant mirror-coating with hydrophobic and oleophobic properties, plus premium backside anti-reflective coatings. Premium proprietary anti-reflective coatings provide unsurpassed clarity, durability and ease of cleaning. They are available on any lens style or substrate in color-enhancing green reflex, blue reflex or blue light filtering versions. In addition, the anti-scratch coating provides industry-leading protection from scratching, crazing, peeling and cracking. Any athlete can tell you about the danger and distraction of fogged lenses in cold or humid weather conditions and temperature changes. For this reason, SportifEye designed an anti-fog coating that can also be combined with AR and mirror coating.

Even professional athletes can expect unsurpassed quality personalized eyewear that provides a visual edge in any sport with SportifEye Optics designs. Join the sport frame manufacturers that use SportifEye as their go-to lab for personalized sports performance eyewear and see the difference.