Review of the VR Lens Lab, vr-lens.eu, and WIDMOvr Prescription Lens Adaptors

Wrinkly

Wrinkly

Wrinkly

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Copy & paste from https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/7v63o1/my_review_of_the_vr_lens_lab_vrlenseu_and_widmovr/

Here is my review of the VR Lens Lab, vr-lens.eu and WIDMOvr prescription lens adaptors. My prescription is -4.25, so while definetly not the worst - I definetly need glasses to fully enjoy the Rift. I found my glasses to be very uncomfortable; putting pressure on my nose, pressing against my temple, as well as scratching my Oculus Rifts lenses. These three products claim to offer a solution to these problems.

Please note that this review is purely based on my opinions and experiences, so if you disagree or would like to add to something I have said, please do so in the comments.

VR Lens Lab RABS Lenses

QUALITY: These seem the most premium of the lenses - they come packaged nicely with a microfiber cloth and with a nice carrying case. The frames are injection moulded and feel very high quality and sturdy. The lenses are very thin and light, the first impressions are very good.

DESIGN: Arguably the most important aspect of the lenses is unfortunetly the biggest let down. They are a friction fit, you slide these two rubber tabs in the space between the facial interface and the headset - but this is a very poor design choice. During gameplay, the bottom tab would easily come loose, either making me have to take the headset off and readjust them, or just causing discomfort and making the image blurry. I have tried various solutions, including blu-tac and sticky tape, but none of them are a permanent solution.

DISTORTION: Having paid extra for the "distortion-free" RABS lenses, I was rather disappointed to find that if you look down, as you move your head there is a fair amount of barrel distortion visible. This took some getting used to, but after the first few hours of use - it did became far less noticable.

COMFORT: As with all the lenses, they eliminate the discomfort assosiated with wearing your glasses. With that said, the lenses are curved towards your eyes, meaning if you have long eyelashes they can smudge and scratch the lenses. The main issue causing discomfort, however, was when looking upwards or making sharp movements, the lenses would fall out and I found them actually touching my eye at times - which immediately took me out of the action.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS: Of the lenses I have tried, these were by far my least favorite - I would highly recommend against buying these. They are designed poorly and there far better options out there for the price.

If you have already purchased these, I would recommend getting this adaptor https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/142391930424 which fixes the poor design choices in the stock frame.

vr-lens.eu

QUALITY: These come packaged neatly in a cardboard box, in bags labelled L and R. It's important not to mix these up, as it makes the installation later a lot harder. The frame for the lenses are 3D printed, but you can barely tell. The plastic is very thick and sturdy, but light weight as well.

DESIGN: These are by far my favorite in terms of design. Provided you have arranged them so you know which is left and right, you can easily just clip them in - there are two little hooks on the bottom which hook onto a ridge on the Oculus Rift lens. They are very secure, yet can easily be taken out as well. They have went for the traditional lens design, which means they curve inwards towards the Oculus Rift lens. This means there has to be a big gap inbetween them, so there isn't a chance of scratching either lens. This leads to the lenses being very close to your eye. Some people won't have a problem with this, but I expect many would have to purchase a thicker VR Cover Facial Interface to prevent discomfort.

DISTORTION: Since they have the same lens as you have in your regular glasses, there is absolutly no distortion whatsoever. I thouroughly enjoyed using these - it was like magic. Everything was crisp and clear, yet I wasn't experiencing any of the discomforts assosiated with wearing glasses.

COMFORT: Provided you have purchased a thicker facial interface to prevent your eyelashes from touching the lenses, these are definetly one of the most comfortable lenses. The light weight and secure clip-on system means they are invisible during use.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS: These might just be my favorite lenses - these are the most well thought out in terms of design, there is no distortion, and the resultant experience is just magical. If you need glasses and have found them to be uncomfortable in the Rift, I would highly recommend these lenses. They improve the experience massively.

WIDMOvr:

QUALITY: WIDMOvr is the largest and seems to be the clunkiest of the three, but overall they felt very high quality. They come packaged neatly in a very elegant black bag with a soft interior to protect the lenses. They also come with basic instructions, but I would recommend watching this video https://youtu.be/fRf6t-Ue5wI for a more in depth tutorial of how to put them in.

DESIGN: These are well designed overall and do sit very securly. You have to take off your Rift's facial interface, and clip it on to the inside of it. One disappointing point for me was that this would not work with my VR Cover facial interface, as the plastic is thicker than the stock facial interface. This was fixable with a slight modification (https://imgur.com/a/RAIIV, courtesy of u/sekazi) however. There wasn't any movement and they felt very secure in there, however athsetetic wise there was a gap visible between the headsets lenses and the adaptor, which did make it feel slightly less premium.

DISTORTION: There was absolutly no distortion, their glass did not alter the graphical quality of the images, and FOV was not affected.

COMFORT: The headset does become a little more uncomfortable around the nose and the eyes - but this is still far, far better than wearing glasses and most of the time you won't even notice they're there. Once again, this was mostly solved by using a thicker VR Cover facial interface.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS: These improve the experience massivly, and are definetly worth the money. For the most part they are comfortable, easy to put in, and secure.

VERDICT: My overall favorite is the vr-lens.eu lenses. The clip-on mechanism just seems slightly more seemless and well thought out than the competitors, however I would only recommend them if you'd be willing to pay ~$40 for a thicker VR Cover facial interface, because you might have to. Otherwise, I would highly recommend WIDMOvr, as they are also very well designed, abait a few extreamly minor issues. As for VR Lens Lab, I would not even consider them. I was very disappointed, and actually ended up going back to my regular glasses.

ALTERNATIVES: There are a few other alternatives which I have not tried, but I would recommend looking into if you don't want to shell out ~$80 for the above lenses. You can purchase these lenses https://www.zennioptical.com/p/metal-alloy-full-rim-frame-with-spring-hinges/5500?skuId=550021 from Zennioptical, and if you have a 3D printer, you can 3D print this https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1602460 adaptor, or this https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2210388 adaptor if you use VR Cover.

Another option to consider is contact lenses, with a bit of practice getting them in, they can be a perfect solution. You could even wear them outside VR as well.
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Thanks for the review. It looks like vr-lens.eu is the one to go for. I found the rift very uncomfortable with glasses but with these lenses and a Rift cover maybe problems solved.
 
I really like the WidmoVR lenses. Very easy to put in and out and give extremely clear vision. Makes using the rift much easier than when wearing glasses and no worries about scratching the rift lenses.
 
I have the vr lens eu and have found it works perfect for me. I used to get pain on the side of my face from glasses after a few hours. The service was very good tracking info was sent when sent out for delivery and toik 10days approx from order to delivery. There also were no import tax since it was from the eu.
 
Have both the vr-lens eu and lens-lab inserts for my Vive. Would easily recommend the eu lenses over the others due to the lack of barrel distortion and being a lot cheaper.

I haven't tried the VR lens-lab frames though - that seems like a good option too in a multiuser environment. Just avoid the inserts from them.
 
I am interested in thus thread as I am awaiting a Rift and wear Varifocal lenses. There seems very mixed reviews VR Lens EU so am still concerned given the price of lenses.
 
I have WidmoVR lenses for my rift, and I was initially worried about the fit with the vrcover interface that I have, but I've never had a problem with it.
 
ArmitageShanks said:
Have both the vr-lens eu and lens-lab inserts for my Vive. Would easily recommend the eu lenses over the others due to the lack of barrel distortion and being a lot cheaper.
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I have both lenses too but I'll be damned if I can fit the .eu lenses. They do not seem to click on or fit as the VR Lenses do.
 
As long as they fit, the .eu lenses are in my view the better option as they remove the extreme distortion when looking at the peripheries with the VR lenses, as indicated in Wrinkly's excellent round-up.

Also, when I ordered from VR lens they didn't actually do my prescription, so I went with a slightly weaker prescription which sufficed.

Either way, I could never go back to wearing glasses in VR.

I have a Vive.
 
darkgen said:
I have both lenses too but I'll be damned if I can fit the .eu lenses. They do not seem to click on or fit as the VR Lenses do.
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They fit my Vive as well as the lenslab ones. There's no hard click as such, they both just seem to stay in place. At the time, eu were trialling a new adapter shape which I received, offering to replace them if I had trouble (which I did not fortunately). I'm happy with them :)
 
ArmitageShanks said:
They fit my Vive as well as the lenslab ones. There's no hard click as such, they both just seem to stay in place. At the time, eu were trialling a new adapter shape which I received, offering to replace them if I had trouble (which I did not fortunately). I'm happy with them :)
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Hmmm; I ended up having to use a small piece of card which pushes down between the lens and the head cushion pad. Perhaps I'll chance a new set as you say I also find them better then the VR Lab lenses.
 
Kronos said:
What is it exactly that I order from Zenni as a guy here is going to 3D print me the holder thingy?
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isnt it just the eyeglasses with your prescription lenses? You pop the lenses out and put them in the frame you 3d printed? Im guessing.

Very interested to see how you get on with this though :)
 
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