Where “blue ray glasses” comes from
People arrive at the counter asking for blue ray glasses, blue rays or blue block. Others ask for blue cut, blue filter or blue light glasses. They almost always mean the same thing. The maker builds or coats the lens to filter part of the blue end of the visible spectrum. It reflects or absorbs that light rather than passing it straight through.
The phrase itself is a small collision of two others. “Blue light” is the term the lens industry uses. “Blu-ray” is an optical disc format, named for the short-wavelength laser that reads it. It has nothing to do with spectacles. Somewhere between the two, “blue ray glasses” settled into everyday speech. The phrase is now common enough that it is worth answering rather than correcting.
None of the words are technical, and none of them describe a single standardised product. Two lenses may carry the same blue light label yet differ greatly in build. They can look different on the face and photograph differently. That is really what this page is about: what you are actually ordering when you use those words. It also covers what you will see when the lens sits in the frame.
What “blue light” refers to on a lens order
Visible light runs roughly from 380 to 780 nanometres, violet at the short end and red at the long end. Blue occupies the short-wavelength stretch, broadly between 400 and 500 nanometres. The International Commission on Illumination maintains definitions of the visible spectrum and its wavelength bands. That body sets the vocabulary and measurement standards for light and colour.
Blue wavelengths are in daylight, in LED lighting, and in the white output of phone, laptop and television screens. When a lens carries the blue filter description, the maker has altered its transmission curve within that short-wavelength region. Such a lens does not block blue entirely. A lens that removed blue altogether would look strongly orange, and no one would sell it as a clear everyday lens.
So the useful question to ask about any such lens is not “does it block blue”. Ask instead “how much, at which wavelengths, and by reflecting or by absorbing”. Those three answers explain every visual difference between one blue-filtering lens and the next.
Reflect or absorb: the two ways a lens filters
There are two engineering routes, and most modern lenses use one, the other, or a mix of both.
Reflection, through the anti-reflection coating
Every good spectacle lens carries a multi-layer anti-reflection coating. Makers vacuum-deposit vanishingly thin layers of metal oxide on both surfaces. They tune these layers so that reflections cancel out across most of the visible range. The coating’s performance varies with wavelength. A designer can therefore make it reflect part of the blue band instead of transmitting it. The process adds nothing to the lens material; the filtering happens at the surface.
Absorption, in the lens material itself
Another approach builds the filter into the substrate. A dye or pigment goes into the mix at casting, so the material itself absorbs part of the short-wavelength band. Filtering then runs through the whole thickness of the lens rather than the surface. It does not depend on the coating.
In practice, the consequence matters more than the theory. A reflective approach tends to leave the lens looking clear. But it throws a coloured sheen back at anyone looking at you. An absorptive approach tends to leave a faint warmth in the lens but reflects less. Lenses that combine the two sit somewhere in between.
What the coating looks like on the lens
Hold a coated lens under a ceiling light and tilt it. The residual reflection — the colour the coating cannot cancel — is what you see. On a standard anti-reflection coating it is usually a faint green or a pale straw. On many blue-filtering coatings it reads violet, electric blue or a deep indigo. It is noticeably brighter than the residual reflection on a conventional coating.
That sheen is the single most visible difference. Judge it in person rather than in a product photograph. It shows up in three situations:
- Photographs with flash, where the lens can flare blue or purple across the eye.
- Video calls, where a monitor is a large bright rectangle. The coating bounces a blue-violet rectangle back at the camera.
- Direct downlighting, common in offices and in Singapore shopping centres. It catches the front surface at exactly the angle that shows the reflection.
Some people like it. Others would rather nobody saw anything on the lens at all. They prefer a more absorptive lens with a quieter coating. Neither is a technical error. It is a question of how you want the frame to read on your face. A frame you chose for its shape deserves a lens that does not distract from it.
How much tint, and what the lens looks like off the face
Absorptive blue-filtering lenses carry a residual colour. At the lightest end it is barely detectable. You notice it only by laying the lens on a sheet of white paper next to an untinted one. There it shows as the faintest warm cast. Stronger versions, generally sold for screen-intensive work, look openly amber or honey-coloured and are obvious at arm’s length.
On the face, a light warm tint is close to invisible to other people. That is especially true behind a dark acetate or a strongly coloured front. Against a rimless build or a pale titanium rim, more of the lens edge and colour is on show. The tint then contributes to the look of the whole piece. This is one reason we ask people to try a frame on rather than judge it from a picture. You can only really judge fit, proportion and comfort when you put a frame on. The same is true of how a lens colour sits against a particular frame and a particular complexion.
Lens colour is also worth thinking about alongside what you do with your eyes all day. A designer matching Pantone references and a person answering email have different tolerances for a warm cast. There is no single correct answer to hand out.
Ordering the filter on a prescription
A blue-filtering option is not an accessory bought separately and clipped on. We specify it when we order the lens, alongside the material, the index, the design and the coating package. The lab then returns it as part of the finished lens.
In practice we can usually combine it with:
- Single vision lenses, for distance or for reading.
- Progressive and occupational designs, including the intermediate-weighted layouts made for desk distances.
- Higher-index materials, where a stronger prescription needs a thinner lens.
- Myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism and presbyopia prescriptions alike. The filter is a property of the lens surface or material, not of the power.
Availability of any particular combination depends on the maker and the design. Zeiss and Hoya are the lens makers we recommend. Both publish their current lens and coating ranges on their own sites. What a given filter does or does not do is a question for the maker’s own published material. We would rather point you to it than paraphrase it.
If you already have a frame you like, we can remake a lens to a new prescription and a new coating specification. We then edge it into that frame. That works provided the frame is sound and the shape allows the lens design you want. Frames with worn or damaged fronts are a different conversation — restoration and repainting a frame is its own craft.
Plano lenses: no prescription, same options
Plano means no corrective power. A plano blue-filtering lens is a finished optical lens with zero prescription, surfaced flat in power. We coat or tint it to specification. We edge it into the frame in exactly the same way as a prescription lens.
Two things are worth separating here. The demo lens that comes in a frame from the factory is a display piece. It holds the shape in the rim and shows the frame off on the shelf. That demo lens is not a finished optical lens, and no one intends you to wear it long term. A plano lens made to order is a real lens. It uses the same material, the same coating stack, the same edging and the same fitting.
Because plano lenses have no power, the whole decision becomes the frame plus the lens finish. That is a pleasant position to be in. You are choosing the shape you actually want, and the lens follows.
Sunglasses, indoor lenses and where a filter goes
Blue filtering and sun tinting are separate specifications, and people often muddle them. A sun lens is dark by design across the visible range, and the material itself blocks ultraviolet. A blue-filtering indoor lens is clear or nearly clear, and you wear it under artificial light. The two can coexist in a single lens order. However, a sun lens’s own tint dominates what you see. A blue filter buried under a dark grey or brown tint is rarely the point.
Photochromic lenses sit between the two, darkening in sunlight and clearing indoors, and several makers offer blue-filtering versions. Again, the maker’s own literature sets out what each specific product does.
For sport, the lens shape wraps, and the prescription has to allow for that curve. The frame therefore comes first in the conversation. Rudy Project is one of the houses we carry for exactly that kind of build.
Choosing a frame you will actually wear at a desk
A screen-facing pair is often the pair you wear most hours of the week. That argues for choosing it the same way you would choose any other frame. Look at design, proportion and how it suits your face. We carry luxury eyewear and unique designs — small independent houses, distinctive materials and shapes. We choose them because they are beautiful and made well, and not the sort of thing a chain stocks.
Some starting points from the collections we carry:
- Lindberg — we are an authorised Lindberg dealer. Its rimless and thin-titanium builds keep the lens edge and any residual coating colour quietest on the face. The house also makes frames in buffalo horn, and Lindberg Precious in solid 18k gold.
- Wissing — German-made and colour-led. It suits anyone who wants the front of the frame to carry the interest rather than the lens.
- Matsuda — Japanese metalwork with engraved detail, at the opposite end of the spectrum from anonymous.
- Bespoke — we make hand-made spectacles in-house, cutting the acetate ourselves and working from our own colour range. A client can therefore choose their own shape and colour. We are the only optical boutique in Singapore doing this. Custom shapes explains how that works.
We select frames in small, considered quantities. We choose each one for how it fits and feels on a person. How it looks on display matters less than that. That is why the conversation about a screen pair usually starts with shapes on the face. It does not start with a coating menu.
Fitting a pair you wear at a fixed distance
At every fitting we begin with the essentials: comfort, balance and eye position. We also check how the frame sits across the bridge and temples. Where a lens has an intermediate or reading zone, eye position relative to the lens matters. It decides whether that zone lands where you are actually looking. So the frame’s position on the face is part of the lens specification rather than an afterthought.
Many designers build frames around a higher bridge profile. We pay particular attention to fit for Asian facial features. A frame should then sit securely and comfortably, without slipping or resting on the cheeks.
This is the part no website can do for you. A photograph shows you a shape. It cannot tell you where the frame will sit after an hour at a desk. Nor can it show how a temple behaves over the ear. And it cannot show how a lens colour looks against your skin in ordinary light. Photos are useful for inspiration. But you can only really judge fit, proportion and comfort when you put a frame on.
Looking after a coated lens
Multi-layer coatings are hard, but they are thin, and most of the damage we see is avoidable.
- Wet-clean, do not dry-wipe. Rinse under a tap, use a drop of mild detergent if needed, then dry with a clean microfibre cloth. Dry dust dragged across a lens is abrasive.
- Keep the cloth clean. A microfibre cloth left in a bag collects grit and then reapplies it.
- Avoid heat. A dashboard in the sun is hard on coatings and on frame materials alike. The same goes for a car parked in the open in Singapore.
- Skip the tissue and the shirt tail. Paper is wood fibre and behaves like it under pressure.
- Use the case. Lenses face down on a table is how the front surface picks up its first scratch.
Crazing — a fine crackled pattern in the coating — is generally the end of a coating’s life. The answer is new lenses rather than a repair.
Questions people ask at the counter
Is “blue ray glasses” wrong?
Only as vocabulary. Everyone in the trade will know what you mean. If you want the term a lab will recognise on an order, ask for a blue-light filtering lens. Say whether you want it clear-looking or lightly tinted.
Will the filter change how the lens looks to other people?
Sometimes. A reflective coating shows a blue or violet sheen at certain angles, particularly under downlights and on camera. An absorptive lens shows less reflection and a slight warmth in the lens instead.
Can I have it without a prescription?
Yes — that is a plano lens, made to order with no power, and fitted like any other lens.
Does it have to go on a new frame?
No. Lenses can be remade into a frame that is structurally sound, subject to the shape suiting the lens design.
Where can I read more?
Further reading on the same ground: blue light glasses and computer glasses with a blue light filter. We have been fitting spectacles in Holland Village for nearly twenty years. The quickest way to settle any of this is to come in and look at the lenses under the light.
