Has the traditional route of going to the optical store to shop for eyeglasses become a thing of the past? Eyeconic is one of the online players promising to revolutionize how we shop for corrective eyewear and how we interface with vision healthcare. And its services are gaining in popularity nationwide.
So we wanted to find out whether Eyeconic’s services make life easier. Is Eyeconic the way you should shop for glasses and contact lenses moving forward? Do they succeed in streamlining the interface between you, your insurance, your doctors and the shopping experience?
Our experts thoroughly tested Eyeconic and now we can give you all the details - the pros and the cons - so you can figure out if it’s a good fit for you.
Pros
- Eyeconic makes it easy to integrate with several major insurance providers.
- Convenience of shopping for many popular brands where and when you want.
- Free shipping and returns.
- Virtual preview shows you how you will look with various eyeglasses.
- Private - Eyeconic is fully HIPAA compliant and your information is secure.
- Discounts for students and teachers, as well as seniors and military.
- Currently $20 off your first order.
Cons
- Longer ordering fulfillment process compared to in-house, traditional experience.
- If your insurance isn’t accepted, Eyeconic loses some luster.
Bottom Line
Eyeconic is a pro outfit and a great path for the many people with accepted insurance, because your doctor network, insurance and Eyeconic work well together in your shopping experience, saving you money (up to $220 according to Eyeconic). If you’ve got VSP, MetLife or Cigna vision insurance, and if you don’t need your eyewear in the next several days or week, Eyeconic is recommended without hesitation and is a great value for sure.
Eyeconic
For many people, Eyeconic will be a great way to take the hassle out of getting prescription eyeglasses and contact lenses.
Eyeconic features dozens of popular brands of eyeglasses and contact lenses. Free shipping and returns make the experience much better. As long as you don't need your eyeglasses within the next several days, but can wait a couple weeks, Eyeconic is worth a try.
Innerbody recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary online. Over the past two decades, we have helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions involving staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles.
We extensively test, experience and order from each health service we review. Our review of Eyeconic is no different. We try our best to give you, our readers, an unbiased exploration of at-home health services, free of marketing jargon or gimmicks. We evaluate the service based on our adherence to quality, the latest medical evidence and health standards, and a simple question: would we buy the product or service ourselves if it weren’t part of our job, and would we recommend it to family and friends?
Additionally this review of Eyeconic, like all health-related content on this website, was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy.
At its heart, Eyeconic is an online shopping experience for corrective eyewear. Founded in 2011, they’ve been around for quite a while, relative to many other websites. They offer eyeglasses, contact lenses and sunglasses for adults and kids. You can find contact lenses from twenty different brands, and 47 different brands of glasses.
In addition to a shopping experience, though, Eyeconic can go further thanks to its partnership with the VSP doctor network.
- Eyeconic offers a free doctor consultation with purchase of new contact lenses.
- Frame adjustments are also complementary via local doctors in the VSP network.
And as previously mentioned, how Eyeconic connects with major vision insurance provides added value for sure.
A real game-changer with Eyeconic is its integration with major insurance and doctor networks. Eyeconic is the only online service partnered with VSP, the largest vision insurance provider in the United States (insuring one in five Americans). The reason why Eyeconic integrates so well with VSP is that VSP created Eyeconic back in 2011. Now Eyeconic also accepts MetLife and Cigna.
From its inception to the present day, Eyeconic’s most impressive selling point remains that, for many Americans, it integrates pretty seamlessly with their vision insurance, making it a very economical, convenient and user-friendly way to get the vision correction people need. The shopping experience is extremely cool for these customers - and that’s a lot of people.
Eyeconic also offers to help you navigate the confusing waters of vision insurance via their website, so that you can secure vision insurance through your employer during open enrollment periods or find a VSP individual plan that works for you. These approaches can help you save money using Eyeconic over time.
First, head to Eyeconic to browse their selection of 47 popular brands and see which frames appeal to you. If you’re unsure where and how to find good frames, consult their handy ‘face shape’ guide.
Virtual try-on feature
What’s more, you can use their virtual visualization program to see how you’d look while wearing the eyeglasses! To use this feature, you’ll record a quick 5-second video of yourself using your webcam, and then also take a photo of yourself while holding a plastic card (like a gift card or library card) to your forehead for sizing purposes.
You can then see a preview of how you’d look in the eyeglasses, before you order. Share with friends and family to get their opinions!
Eyeglass lens packages
After you add the desired frames to your shopping bag, you’re ready to choose lenses. Here are your options.
Eyeconic offers three different lens packages - Silver, Gold and Platinum. Silver and Gold will be best suited for people with prescriptions up to +/- 3.00. The Platinum package is ideal for bigger prescriptions up to +/- 6.00.
Silver (included in display pricing on Eyeconic):
- Durable polycarbonate lenses.
- Impact and scratch resistant.
- 100% UV protection.
Gold:
- Anti-reflective coating.
- Impact-resistant Trivex lenses.
- 100% UV protection.
Platinum:
- Scratch-resistant, high index lenses - the lightest and thinnest for strong prescriptions.
- 100% UV protection.
- Anti-reflective coating.
Available add-ons:
- Sunsync®, a light-reactive coating, is available for those who move frequently between light and dark spaces.
- Techshield™ Blue is a super cool add-on for those whose work or play makes them spend lots of time staring at screens. Sound familiar? Use Techshield Blue to reduce the unnatural blue light emissions that your eyes have to handle.
Upload your prescription information
Unless you’re ordering non-prescription sunglasses, you’ll need your prescription information or you can provide Eyeconic with contact info for the office that has this information.
Then, you’ll need to specify shipping and payment, and voila! Your order fulfillment process begins.
Choosing contact lenses is convenient on Eyeconic.
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Browse the 20 contact lens brands to find the lenses you need.
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Upload your prescription into Eyeconic. If you don’t remember your prescription, simply give Eyeconic your doctor’s office contact details and they will find out for you.
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Select shipping and payment options, complete your purchase, and you’re all set.
And with Eyeconic, you also benefit from a free doctor consultation to make sure that your contact lenses fit perfectly.
Price
For a customer with accepted insurance, Eyeconic sells a box of prescription contact lenses for $25, on average. Prices are significantly higher without accepted insurance.
Shipping and returns
Eyeconic puts your products through a 25-point inspection prior to shipping, with the aim of ensuring total satisfaction with it.
Once your order is complete, shipping is fast and free to all 50 states in the U.S. If, for whatever reason, you aren’t satisfied or there’s some unexpected problem, you can return your order for free and receive a full refund.
Order fulfillment times
Some customers complain about how long it takes for their order to be fulfilled. This is a major difference between the online vision service experience and traditional in-house optical capabilities. In our testing, it wasn’t a big problem and our wait time was on average around a couple weeks, which isn’t far from the traditional experience of getting prescription eyewear when it can’t be fulfilled in-house. And in our minds, the convenience of shopping online outweighs the additional week of waiting for the product. But for you, with your eyewear needs, that may not be true.
Some complaints about order fulfillment times arise because we’ve all come to expect everything online to be kind of instantaneous. And some complaints occur very understandably because people need eyewear in order to see clearly; we aren’t talking about ordering a pair of pants or a new blouse. In an emergency situation of replacing eyewear and needing to be able to see, Eyeconic could frustrate you. This is why we recommend Eyeconic in situations where you can wait a couple weeks to get your new eyewear.
If you need eyewear in the next several days, you’ll probably want to stick with a more traditional optical store route with in-house services to help expedite your product. And if your insurance provider isn’t accepted by Eyeconic at this time, your experience may be a mixed bag and not as valuable. Eyeconic is best for those who can wait a couple weeks to receive their prescription product.
But if you want the convenience of shopping for eyewear at home or on the go, and you can wait a couple weeks for your order to be fulfilled, then Eyeconic might be a great fit for you and is worth trying. And if you’ve got VSP, MetLife or Cigna vision insurance, Eyeconic is a true winner and highly recommended.
At Innerbody, we customize our evaluation criteria depending on the type and nature of the health-related service. For Eyeconic and other health services and products, we have five areas that we use for our evaluations:
Quality: How well does the company deliver its core service(s) to the customer? For testing services, does the company adhere to the latest and most advanced testing technologies and achieve a very high degree of accuracy? For non-testing health services, is the quality of the service high enough that we would recommend it to loved ones without hesitation? If not, why not?
User-friendly: How intuitive and user-friendly is the service? Does the device/program/app/website achieve a good degree of user-friendliness for its customers?
Value: Are you getting your money’s worth? Are there any hidden costs or charges? Does the company offer discounts?
Privacy: If health data is stored, will your data be stored securely? Are payments secure?
Customer Support: Particularly in situations where ‘one size fits all’ doesn’t make sense, how well does the company help to make the service ideal for you?
