by John Carle, Mar 3 2014

It may sound gimmicky on the surface. If you tell someone there’s a special pair of glasses they can wear while gaming that will reduce eye strain, it sounds like hype to sell overpriced goods that don’t actually work. And at first, I would have agreed with that assumption. But trying to be a fair and unbiased person, which is really a challenge for me, I put in a request for a pair of Gunnar glasses and to my surprise, they actually accomplished the job.

I won’t get into the science behind it. That’s mostly because any of the science I would know about it comes from reading the Gunnar website and as we all know, websites can provide whatever “facts” they need to in order to make a sale. Yes, a wonder drug may reduce hair loss but that’s because it kills you but at least they are still telling the truth that your hair doesn’t fall out.

Instead, I just did my own test. After a busy week at the office where I spent between 7 to 9 hours each day in front of a monitor I decided to spend the better part of a Saturday marathoning a game. It’s been some time since I have done a full on marathon but after the initial few hours it usually resulted in taking breaks to get up for various reasons, just to get my face away from the screen. Eventually, the time in between started to reduce and after a full day I’d have a nice headache to deal with.

With the Gunnars, it was actually different. I’m not going to lie and say I made the most scientific experiment but in the end, I did notice a different result. My head wasn’t pounding and I took fewer breaks. I will say that it did take a second to get used to the yellow. Part of what helps reduce eye strain is the tint of the glasses and if you’re looking at a white wall, it’s not white anymore. But after a few minutes in game mode, you don’t notice the change anymore.

Being someone who doesn’t wear glasses on the regular, it did take me a little bit of time to get used to wearing them but I can’t argue with the end result. I don’t know if the glasses will make their way into my standard routine but when I know I am going to be on a grind or long day of multiplayer, they can definitely earn their way onto the standard utility belt… yes, I have a utility belt.