Gunnar Intercept, the Blue Light Blocking Glasses Review

Gunnar Intercept, the Blue Light Blocking Glasses Review

July 21, 2017 18:22 EST • Alexandre Vallières-Lagacé • 3 minute read

As you can guess, the number of screens in our lives never stops to increase. Where we only had a big cathode ray TV two decades ago, we now have a phone, a table a watch, a computer and even a kitchen smart assistant. All those things have one thing in common, the screen. This LCD casting blue light to your retinas, all day long, and even late at night. This has tremendous effects on people’s lives, so much that the latest research says that it breaks your circadian rhythm thus preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep. Dry eyes and eye fatigue and headaches are the most frequent symptoms.

Electronic device manufacturers started to include technologies to reduce those effects. Apple introduced NightShift to reduce the amount of blue light emitted, and f.lux has been trying the same thing for the better part of the last decade. Gunnar is trying something different. They developed a proprietary lens technology that block 65% of the blue light and offers this lens in a wide variety of eyewear. Prescription or not, you have more than 20 different styles to choose from.

I got the Intercept glasses with the amber lenses right here. Here’s what I think of them.

Design

The frame is made of very light plastique and feels like you’re wearing almost nothing. The lenses are the yellow tinted ones, the ones that block 65% of the blue light. They also make a clear version that block 10% of the blue light and 100% of UV light.

You can basically wear the transparent one all day like you would with regular glasses. Also, Gunnar offers prescription versions so you can completely replace your existing pair of glasses.

Features

  • Amber lens
  • Block 65% of blue light
  • Anti-reflective, anti-glare coatings
  • Light transmission tuned to eliminate stress

Performance

I wore these glasses at work during long stretches of work facing a blue screen with NightShift disabled. I’m lucky enough not to suffer from strong symptoms, but I often feel eyesores and light headaches. When wearing the Gunnar glasses, I found them to be very effective and they left my eyes perfectly fine after long days in front of a monitor.

Since NightShift has been released on macOS, it automatically kicks in for me later in the day. However, I spend most of the day and not the night in front of my computer. Therefore, it’s not really useful for me. You could, of course, activate NightShift all day, but even then, I found the Gunnar glasses more effective. Everything seems to be sharper and better focused. I do not know if it’s a placebo effect, or if it’s really the light transmission that is tuned to remove the strain from your eyes as Gunnar says.

Nonetheless, the feeling is comfortable and prolonged use is very comfortable.

Conclusion

If you are in front a computer like me, you should really think of using something to protect your eyes and make that whole working on a computer thing more comfortable. I wished the Clear version were blocking the same 65% of blue light as the Amber lens though. I really love the design of many of the glasses, but the Intercept in Amber is my favorite, and I could really see me wear those in clear everyday if they were as efficient as the amber ones.

Review Summary

Gunnar Intercept Glasses with Amber LensGunn Optiks
Gunnar Intercept Glasses with Amber Lens

Eye strain and eye dryness from screen exposure is more than ever affecting us, Gunnar has a solution with its series of blue light block eyewear.

Gunnar Intercept in Amber
Gunnar Sheadog in Clear

The Good Stuff
  • Light and comfortable
  • Effective to releave stress
  • Sharpness and comfort increase
The Bad Stuff
  • 60% blocking only in amber
The Ratings
Design
100%
Efficiency
90%
Choices
70%
Price
90%
Overall: 88%
Disclaimers: This product or service was provided by the company or partner for the purpose of this review.
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