Glasses That Solve Colorblindness, for a Big Price Tag

A few weeks back, I wrote about special lenses that were developed to give doctors “a clearer view of veins and vasculature, bruising, cyanosis, pallor, rashes, erythema, and other variations in blood O2 level, and concentration,” especially in bright light.

But these lenses turned out to have an unintended side effect: they “may cure red-green colorblindness.”

I’m severely red-green colorblind, so I was eager to try these $300 lenses. Turns out they didn’t help me; the company said that my colorblindness is too severe. They have helped many others, though (their Amazon reviews makes that clear).

After my column appeared, I heard from another company that makes color-enhancing glasses â€" this time, specifically for red-green colorblind folks. The company’s called EnChroma, and the EnChroma Cx sunglasses are a heartbeat-skipping $600 a pair.

“Our lenses are specifically designed to address color blindness,” the company wrote to me, “and utilize a 100+ layer dielectric coating we engineered for this precise purpose by keeping the physiology of the eyes of colorblind people in mind.”

I asked to try out a pair. (You can, too: there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee.)

To begin, you figure out which kind of colorblindness you have â€" Protan or Deutan â€" by taking the test at enchroma.com. Turns out I have something called Strong Protan. (“Protanomaly is a type of red-green color vision deficiency related to a genetic anomaly of the L-cone (i.e. the red cone).”) I’d never heard of it, but whatever.

The glasses themselves look like high-end mirrored sunglasses (actually, several styles are available). They come in a sleek, compact case. I was surprised to read some of the disclaimers. First, they’re sunglasses. They don’t work indoors unless the light is very bright. Second, they’re not designed for use with a computer screen.

And, weirdly enough, these glasses won’t help you pass the standard Ishihara colorblindness test, the ones where you try to see a number composed of hundreds of dots in a circular test pattern. I still failed that test. You can read much, much more about the fine print and the scientific basis here.

In any case, I took them outside on a sunny day â€" and was floored. I mean, I had a visceral reaction to what I saw.

Colors I see just fine â€" blues, yellows, oranges â€" looked exactly the same. But all of a sudden, greens and reds looked richer. It’s almost impossible to describe in words. In fact, it’s impossible for normal-vision people to understand, even by wearing them, because they don’t see anything different with the EnChroma glasses on!

But an old brown Vermont barn roof was revealed, quite clearly, to be salmon red. Yards full of leafy trees and plants suddenly had different shades of green. Everywhere I looked, desaturated or barely discernible red things were popping.

There was a weird sensation of seeing red and green areas in the periphery of my vision.

It was a little like the Claritin TV commercials, where you’re seeing a nature scene, and then they “peel away” what is revealed to be a subtly milky film over the camera lens, making the image much richer and more saturated.

The highlight came on Day 4 of my tests, when my kids discovered a rainbow arcing across the sky, pointing and exclaiming. I looked. With my own eyes, I could barely see it. Maybe there was a soft arc of yellow, but that was it.

Then I put on the glasses. Unbelievable! Now I saw two entire additional color bands, above and below the yellow arc. It was suddenly a complete rainbow. I don’t mind admitting, I felt a surge of emotion. It was like a peek into a world I knew existed, but had never been allowed to see.

My mind raced. Is this what normal people see all the time? Until eye-transplant surgery becomes cheap and commonplace, you and I will never know.

So would I pay $600 for these glasses?

The truth is, I don’t consider colorblindness much of a handicap. When I was growing up, my mom had to help me match my clothes. People had to help me choose the right color paint in art class in school.

But traffic lights, contrary to popular myth, aren’t a problem. The bottom one appears white to me, but so what? I still know that “bottom light” means “go.” A few times a year, someone will say, “What, you can’t see that reddish area?” (Or, somewhat uselessly: “What color does grass look to you?” Uh…)

No, I’ll never grow up to be an interior designer or house painter. I review cameras, of course, but I always have non-colorblind people look over the photos before I make any comments about their color.

So for me, a guy whose career, conversation and clothing don’t depend on accurate identification of color names, $600 is too steep.

But these glasses really do work. They clearly help you distinguish colors, detect reds and greens, and restore the richness of the world you’ve been missing. They’ve brought me at least a few moments of genuine, breath-catching wonder. And it’s joyous to know that if it’s ever important enough, somewhere out there, I can lay my hands on an item that will let me see the real world of color.