Colorblindness Glasses

[RIP-Felix]

Anyone here colorblind and tried Enchroma glasses or other colorblindness corrective glasses?

I just bought a pair and am going to an iris garden tomorrow to try them out. I looked on amazon and there are $80 alternatives to the $350 enchroma glasses, but from reading around the web it sounds like those cheaper ones are just colored lenses and skew other colors. Enchroma glasses are supposed to correct red-green colorblindness without shifting colors.

$350 a pair is expensive, but as others have pointed out, it's not as bad as prescription lenses. Since I have 20/20 I don't have to deal with that expense, and since this is a life altering opportunity, I figured I'd make the investment. So I got an indoor and outdoor pair. $700 total. Insurance doesn't consider Color Vision Deficiency (CVD) a medical disorder, and won't help me pay. I checked. Even though I need to distinguish colors at work from time to time and have to ask a female coworker's opinion, they don't consider these reasonable accommodation either.

I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else out there has tried these and what their experience was?

[Draco1962]

I have been blessed with excellent color vision, but have had to go to corrective lenses for near-sightedness since my 30s.

My youngest son however is colorblind with difficulty with red and green. I hope you have good luck with them and keep us posted 

[RedDog]

I have not purchased any, but I was able to try a demo pair for about 20 minutes.

I was in luck that my optomitrist was the first in Florida to get demo pairs of colorblind correction glasses. In fact, they were so new that they were not quite sure how to sell them to their customer (I guess no one there is color blind).

I am moderate red green colorblind, so I did not expect much of a change when I put them on. Surprisingly, they did more than I thought. The change was not immediate. It was as if my eyes or brain had to get used to them, but after abour 15 minutes I started to notice differences that I had somehow missed. For instance, a flower I thought was white 5 minutes before was actually light pink; edging on a sign that I thought was black was dark green; the striping on a building that I was sure was brown was actually maroon. Despite there only being minor shifts in my perception, it was a rather cool expereince.

My normal perscription is still changing, so I cannot justify the extra cost to add the color blindness correction to some lenses, but I am hopeful that the tech will become more common in the next 5 years.

Good luck with them. I hope your experience with them is as good as mine was.

[tthurman]

This is pretty amazing, I wasn't aware of their existence.  I wonder if they are effective for people who have optic nerve damage from optic neuritis, as it cases color perception changes of varying degrees with each recurrence.

 

[RedDog]

@tthurman There are three different types of color blindness and my optomitrist had one demo pair of glasses for each type. My understanding is that anyone that is red-green colorblind can put on the red-green corrective pair and they will work. They are non-prescription if you can believe that.

That leaves me to believe that if the tech can be applied to optic neuritis, it would probably be prescription since my guess is that the affect of that condition is probably different enough from color blindness (after all, if it ws the same, wouldn't it be called color blindness?)      But, it does not hurt to ask the eye doc.

I would encourage anyone who is color blind to try them. Not only is it a cool experience, but the more people who know about it and like the idea...the sooner the tech is readily available...and then I can get the add-on cheap.  

[RIP-Felix]

I am a mild Deutan, "a type of red-green color blindness in which the green cones do not detect enough green and are too sensitive to yellows, oranges, and reds. As a result, greens, yellows, oranges, reds, and browns may appear similar, especially in low light. It can also be difficult to tell the difference between blues and purples, or pinks and grays."

22 hours ago, RedDog said:

I am moderate red green colorblind, so I did not expect much of a change when I put them on. Surprisingly, they did more than I thought. The change was not immediate. It was as if my eyes or brain had to get used to them, but after abour 15 minutes I started to notice differences that I had somehow missed. For instance, a flower I thought was white 5 minutes before was actually light pink; edging on a sign that I thought was black was dark green; the striping on a building that I was sure was brown was actually maroon. Despite there only being minor shifts in my perception, it was a rather cool expereince.

This was my experience as well. The difference was more immediate, however. While I saw color before and the difference wasn't as dramatic as many of the youtube videos, there were some drastic differences:

• Green lights have always looked white to me, the exact same color as the moon. I've said that since childhood and everyone has looked at me like I'm crazy. Now I can SEE why. THAT LIGHT IS GREEN, HUH? That was pretty dramatic.
• Driving to work today I noticed some letters on LED billboards were actually Green, not white. I found myself peaking back and forth just to make sure. It's kind of mind blowing to see a super green color with the glasses on then remove them to see white!
• The Green information signs on roadways always looked like a sun faded grey-green. That B!t*h is super green, like really green! I take the glasses off and it's faded grey-green again. At work there is this green fabric that I thought was old and sun faded green, because it has that faded white hue clothes get over time - especially when you wash colors in hot water. Well It's not. It a brilliant/vibrant green. Not faded at all! Mind = blown!
• I have a magnificent frogspawn coral at work that I thought was green. It's not. It's rose.
• A room in my mom's house I thought was white, is actually Pink. That's something I noticed gradually over ~20mins of wearing the glasses at the iris garden. Pinks, greys and whites began separating out. Pink is a whole lot more enjoyable. Grey is easier to see as different than pink.
• Red flowers were more red, like fluorescent - even iridescent at times. It wasn't as dramatic a change as the green light, but it's noticeable.
• Turquoise was interesting. Blue blends into green gradually without a turquoise band without the glasses. Now I can see there is a distinct band of turquoise in between. I would have said that's a greenish blue before, now I have to lean what to call it. I could be turquoise, teal, or aqua, but I don't even know the difference. I saw it before, but I'm confused by it now. My brain hasn't caught up yet.
• Purples are more purple, but I still have trouble identifying a dark purple from a dark blue. However, red purples (magenta) are easier to distinguish from dark red now.
• Yellows, oranges, and blues look close to the same. Maybe I see orange easier. It seems to separate out of red and yellow more
• Brown is wierd. I'm not sure what it is anymore. I thought it was a reddish or dark green, but there are lighter shades I'm seeing (like dark straw colors and dead leaves) that defy my eye. I'm not sure where tans become browns. Either I'm still having trouble seeing them or my brain has to learn the color. It's not just dark green anymore.

The outdoor glasses work the best, but only in full sunlight. They do work inside and in cloudy weather, but not as good or accurately as the indoor pair. However, the indoor pair don't work as good indoors as the outdoor pair do outdoors.

I retook a bunch of colorblind tests with interesting results. Most tests score me a mild to moderate Deutan without the glasses. With them I score between normal color vision and weak Deutan. So they most certainly do help, but they don't cure my colorblindness.

As for color distortion, they don't really seem to skew colors. My mom said they were like wearing sunglasses, but noticed they enhanced colors a little bit. She said they didn't change any of them however. My sister said they just seemed like sunglasses to her, no color enhancement.

 

Verdict? They do work. I am mildly red-green colorblind without them and weak to normal with them. Green, turquoise, and pink colors have the most dramatic differences, reds and purples are enhanced, orange is easier to separate from red/yellow, and blue/yellow are unchanged. Brown is still confusing. However, I can separate red from brown now. I would say that they are worth the money. I do need to be able to distinguish colors at work and have been getting increasingly frustrated with my CVD. So for this reason alone they are worth it. As for pure enjoyment, the distinctly different greens has been enjoyable. The immediate pop of color, is new. I don't have to stare at something or get closer to figure it out as much. Reds don't blend with green anymore and I'm seeing greens I would otherwise see as white...WHAT?

[RedDog]

They are pretty cool when you first use them. If you don't mind, I would like to hear your impressions after a week or two of use.

[RIP-Felix]

1 minute ago, RedDog said:

They are pretty cool when you first use them. If you don't mind, I would like to hear your impressions after a week or two of use.

Me too. I'd like to know how much of this is psychosomatic. I also need time to process the new signals. Needless to say, my brain hasn't caught up yet.

I will say that I was expecting more dramatic results, like the road signs and green lights. That was cool!

[stigzler]

I am not colour blind, but I am a man. This means that I may as well be when it comes to decorating my house. I mainly stick to black and white.

[hansolo77]

This is so touching to me.  Like seeing Youtube or News clips about people/kids with autism or some other handicap getting the help they've waited forever to have.  It's touching and tear jerking.  I've always known there are people out there with color blindness.  I'm not, so wrapping my head around the issue has always been a difficult one.  It must affect more people that we realize.  To think, you guys have it, and we're just learning about it.  This is a small community.  What are the odds?  My dad's best friend growing up is also color blind.  Tried to sell my dad a couch, not realizing there was a huge bleach spot in the center of it.  That's when we learned he was color blind.  There's also a guy at my work.  I'm amazed a technology is being developed that lets you see the colors I've always seen.

I'm curious to read more about what other discoveries you're seeing.  Like, this is a Game forum, have you tried playing any games and been wowed?  From my perspective, it sounds almost like your eyes have gone through Photoshop and just desaturated all the colors.  Like they are there, but not strong enough differentiate.  Like, you say a green light is the same color as the moon.  That's just "wow".  What does the sun look like?  I mean, don't LOOK at it, obviously.  But it should be like a yellowish orange.  I bet it has always been a whitish color too.  I know when my dad's friend was telling me about his color blindness, we were in a car driving.  He doesn't even see the colors in traffic lights, and just knows which is lit up and what it means.  There are actually 3 colors, red/yellow/green.  Now you can see them all.  And then things like Xbox//PS controllers, with their buttons having different colors.  And what about stuff like RF cables (Video/left/right).  They're actually Yellow/White/Red.  That must be hard to set up being color blind.  And I bet you'd love comic books now. 

It's just amazing hearing about people with handicaps experiencing things a non-handicapped person takes for granted.  Like a true blind person seeing the first time with the help of implants, a deaf person hearing, an amputee from birth walking the first time (or even seeing like a dog walking with an implant although I don't like seeing animals suffering).  Good stuff guys!

[stigzler]

Oh yeah - and what he said...

[RIP-Felix]

8 hours ago, hansolo77 said:

...To think, you guys have it, and we're just learning about it.  This is a small community.  What are the odds?

Be careful what you ask for. I have a biology degree:

Men = 1 in 12 (8%)  , Women = 1 in 200 (0.5%). That's because the gene (section of DNA that codes for our cone cells' color sensitive proteins) is located on the X chromosome. As you may remember from biology class, we get one set of 23 chromosomes from mom and another 23 from dad, totaling 46. Men (XY) only get one copy of this chromosome (from mom or dad, but not both), whereas women (XX) get two (one from each parent). If you get a bad copy or have a somatic mutation, a mutation that changes the gene during your lifetime, then men don't have a backup copy to fall back on, whereas women have that second copy. This is why it's more common in men. It's still only 1 in twelve, so I lost the genetic lottery.

8 hours ago, hansolo77 said:

...have you tried playing any games and been wowed?  From my perspective, it sounds almost like your eyes have gone through Photoshop and just desaturated all the colors.  Like they are there, but not strong enough differentiate.  Like, you say a green light is the same color as the moon.  That's just "wow".  What does the sun look like?  I mean, don't LOOK at it, obviously.  But it should be like a yellowish orange.  I bet it has always been a whitish color too.  I know when my dad's friend was telling me about his color blindness, we were in a car driving.  He doesn't even see the colors in traffic lights, and just knows which is lit up and what it means.  There are actually 3 colors, red/yellow/green.  Now you can see them all.  And then things like Xbox//PS controllers, with their buttons having different colors.  And what about stuff like RF cables (Video/left/right).  They're actually Yellow/White/Red.  That must be hard to set up being color blind.  And I bet you'd love comic books now. 

It's just amazing hearing about people with handicaps experiencing things a non-handicapped person takes for granted.  Like a true blind person seeing the first time with the help of implants, a deaf person hearing, an amputee from birth walking the first time (or even seeing like a dog walking with an implant although I don't like seeing animals suffering).  Good stuff guys!

Lol. Let me break this down for you:

1. I'm mildly colorblind. Which means I can see colors, all of them. I just have difficulty distinguishing certain hues of red/green/orange/yellow, pink/grey, and blue/purple/red. If you want to see what it's like to have different types of colorblindness, check out [this colorblindness simulator]. For reference I have "Mild Deuteranomaly." The closest option to what I see normally would be "Weak/Deuteranomaly"
2. I haven't tried any games yet, I'm working on a bunch of landscaping projects that have been hogging my free time. Besides, it's an excuse to be outside where I can enjoy the full vibrancy of greens around me. Trees, grasses, shrubs, literally everything has more hues of green. I used to say "shades of green", but it's more than that. I'm now thinking hue is the better word. Reds stand out against the green more - red roses pop out of the green leaves more, like someone upped the contrast.
3. You mention photoshop. When I took the glasses off yesterday, after wearing them all day, it kinda looked like a sepia filter. Everything looked more green/yellow. Then I got used to it again and it was just like life as usual.
4. The sun looks yellow. I have not noticed any differences there. The earth's atmosphere scatters blue/UV light, which is why the sky is blue and the sun appears yellow. In space, it appears white, because more blue/UV light reaches your eye. I don't have a problem with my Blue cone cells, so I see Blue/yellow the same as you do. People who do have a problem seeing blue have Tritanomaly, and these glasses do nothing for them. This type is only for Red-green colorblindness.
5. Like I said about the traffic lights, Red is red and "green" appears White to me. I see a distinct difference between Red and white. The yellow is yellow. Position of the lights is overkill. I have no problem telling them apart. I just see the green in the "green light" now.
6. Controller buttons look the same and I had no trouble with Composite cables before.

Since you seem interested, I'll give you a little demo of colors that I can't distinguish without the glasses, but can with:. I used the anomalscope on this site to try to match the color on the right by using a slider that changes the hue of the color on the left. Below are my attempts to match the color. When I thought it was the same color or a close match I selected a match. If the color could not be matched, then I would say no match possible. The ones below are the ones I said matched. I can see now that only one actually matches. It also seems that it's orange/yellow/greens I have the biggest issue with.

[hansolo77]

Neat stuff man!

[RIP-Felix]

On 6/1/2018 at 9:22 PM, RedDog said:

They are pretty cool when you first use them. If you don't mind, I would like to hear your impressions after a week or two of use.

Okay, so these are my impressions after the novelty has worn off...

Indoor vs. outdoor glasses:

• The outdoor glasses give the biggest difference. I'm mild to moderately colorblind. So the difference isn't that great to begin with, but traffic lights, road signs, buildings, LED billboards, and red/pink flowers are the things I notice the most. Most of these objects are outside and the best effect is in full sunlight. If it's cloudy or overcast the outdoor pair doesn't work as well, unless the light source is back-lit. I found an interesting one the other day. If you are stopped at a light and look at the green street signs, you can see the street you are traveling on at an angle and the street you're crossing facing you. With the glasses, I can see the fluorescent Green on the one facing me, but not on the one at an angle. I assume this is an intentional coating of paint to catch the light and increase visibility. The thing is, I can't see it without the glasses. If I take them off, it looks the same as the sign at an angle (a grey/green). It looses that vibrant fluorescent green. The next time you cross an intersection look at the street signs and you'll see what I mean. Just imagine them looking the same regardless of angle. Also, every green information sign with that coating is the same. I don't see it without the glasses. To my blind eyes they look the same as that at angle Grey-Green.
• The indoor glasses are useful for cloudy or overcast days and for certain indoor colors/objects, light pink rooms for example. This is an area where being colorblind is an advantage. The girls can have their pink room, and I can have a white room, as long as I take the glasses off. Red/green charging indicators are easier to distinguish, so that's a good one. The TV is indoors and does appear more vibrant, but I haven't watched all that much TV since getting them, so I haven't noticed much more yet. All things considered, I haven't noticed as many color differences indoors as I have outdoors.

Are they worth $350/pair?

• Outdoor = yes. They increase my enjoyment of the natural world around me enough to justify the cost. I will derive more enjoyment out of them than I would a new game console anyway. So that's a pretty easy answer.
• Indoor = If my job didn't weigh in on this decision, and I was basing it solely on the color differences on cloudy days and indoors at home, then I would have to say no. They do work, but I would max out at $149.99 for the advantages. They do make certain jobs at work easier. So in my case, they are worth the extra $200 for this reason. It's still a tough decision. I'm right at my limit for deciding to keep them at that price point, at least out of my own pocket. If insurance or my employer subsidized the cost, they yeah...it's a no brainier.
• I will be keeping both pairs, but with the feeling of having been fleeced for the indoor pair.

[RedDog]

Thanks for the update. For fairly new tech, the impact is still pretty good. I cannot wait to see how it changes/advances over the next few years.

[RIP-Felix]

Hopefully they can bring this to tritans, that would be pretty cool - people who can't appreciate the full beauty of the sky or ocean!

 

Ultimately, I see gene therapy options being the solution here. In a nut shell, they use genetically engineered retroviruses, viruses that hijack host cells and insert their own DNA to produce more virus. However, instead of producing more virus, we hijacked them to insert instructions for building healthy genes. In this case, they can be instructed to insert cone cell color pigment genes for whichever color deficiency you have.