Progressive versus single vision lenses

I recommend against progressive lenses. It's a tradeoff that does not work well.

I had worn glasses all my life due to myopia, and I have gained presbyopia in recent years due to age. Usually I just take off my glasses if I want to read something in the close range, but my monitor sits at just the inconvenient distance where it's too close for glasses and too far for naked eyes. So I got progressive lenses because... it seemed like a good idea at the time. It didn't go well.

Progressive lenses work by making multiple regions of the lens focus at multiple distances, unlike single vision lenses where the focus range is fairly uniform throughout the entire glass. Many websites explain progressive lenses function with some diagram similar to the one below, where you look ahead for distance version, and look down to focus on a close range object.

The size and shape of each region will vary depending on the lens technology, but it's guaranteed to be smaller than whatever field of view you had before. Also, because the focus distance is no longer uniform across the lens, progressive lenses only really work in the narrow regions that overlap across both eyes. This makes adjustment of progressive lenses less forgiving than single vision lenses.

If you can adjust to the smaller field of view, progressive lenses come with some advantages:

• You only need to bring one set of glasses around, and never really need to take them off to see something up close. This is the main selling point of progressive lenses and they do fulfill this promise.
• If you were planning on getting multiple glasses for multiple focal distances, using progressive lenses would save you money on the frame, since you need just one. You won't save any money on the lenses -- from where I got mine, the lens proportion of my single vision glasses costs $65.99, while progressive lenses costs $132.99. I got a discount when I buy two glasses at the same time (which covered most of the frame cost), so buying one new glasses with progressive lenses costs roughly the same as buying two new single vision glasses.
• If you are trying to focus on some middle distance that's between the near and far distances, you can sort of adjust for it by hunting for the right focus with your eyes. An analogy for photographers is that single vision glasses are basically prime lenses, while progressive lens are sort of like zoom lenses. So if you never need to turn your head, progressive lens glasses are possibly more useful than reading glasses.

So what happens if you do need to turn your head? A related question is: how is the peripheral vision in the regions outside the "distance" and "near" zones? My observation is that the peripheral visions are noticeably distorted. And whenever I turn my head, I will see some unnatural wobble on the side. The optician who handed me my glasses told me that it's basically a lifestyle change, and most people adjust to it in about 6 weeks. But the wobbling effect is sufficiently nauseating, and I wasn't sure this head-turning distorted lifestyle is something I want to adopt going forward, so I went back to single vision glasses after a week.

Progressive lenses function like multiple glasses, but do not function as well as the sum of multiple single vision glasses.

By the way, my solution to computer vision is not progressive glasses, but getting single vision lenses specifically for that distance. I took a tape measured and determined that my optimal viewing distance from the monitor is 75cm, I then went to my optometrist with a tape measure and got a new prescription specifically for that distance. The prescription had the remarks "SV COMPUTER RX ONLY", so it seemed like a process that the optometrist is familiar with, but not something that they would do by default unless you ask for it.

Left, top to bottom: myopic lens ("driving glasses"), progressive lens, presbyopic lens ("reading glasses"). Right: computer glasses.

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