UK Eyewear Industry Sees Uptick in 2023 Driven By Technology

The eyewear industry in the UK has seen significant recovery and growth this year, marking a 20% rise in sales compared to 2020. With travel restrictions no longer an issue in the UK, consumers have quickly returned to their regular social lives, indulging in sports activities, festivals, and theatre trips — driving sales for eyewear, ranging from sunglasses to contact lenses.

One of the factors driving the eyewear industry’s growth is the adoption and integration of emerging technologies into optical products. Combining eyewear with new technologies is no longer a mere science-fiction concept. On top of offering tech-powered features in seemingly regular-looking glasses, tech is also helping make eyewear shopping easier for consumers and retailers. In this post, we’ll look at how the UK eyewear industry continues to evolve with technology:

New prescription products

Prescription eyewear used to be a limited category, inclusive only of prescription glasses or prescription contact lenses. However, other eyewear products now include corrective features based on your eye prescription. These include prescription sunglasses and progressive lenses. Major fashion and luxury brands now follow this trend, recognising the market’s need for vision correction with style. Take Oakley’s line of prescription sunglasses. The brand now promotes a wide array of models with enhanced fields of view, ultra-lightweight frames, top-quality lenses, and premium filters to protect the eyes from harmful rays. From classic shapes like the Frogskins model to trendy Holbrook-style sunglasses, Oakley meets the market’s need for corrective but fashionable eyewear.

With the rise of e-commerce, retailers and brands are also strengthening their online storefronts, making prescription eyewear more accessible for consumers who seek the convenience of choosing and buying their products from the comforts of their homes. Brands like Oakley offer free shipping depending on your country and return, refund, or withdrawal policies if you change your mind or aren’t satisfied with your product. This rise in demand for prescription products and their accessibility also aligns with the shift toward consumers’ focus on health and well-being.

Virtual try-on technology

One of the challenges associated with buying products like eyewear online is the possibility of not receiving exactly what you ordered or ordering a pair of glasses you don’t like. With virtual try-on technology, consumers can see how a product suits their facial shape before buying them. British eyewear designers, KIRK & KIRK, launched the world’s first digital try-on technology in 2022, allowing customers to experience a live try-on without the need for a separate app or downloading a photo. Nearly 10,000 people use the virtual try-on facility monthly to help them decide what they want before visiting their local opticians.

The try-on technology captures the actual light transmission of acrylic eyewear, letting customers see how the light and colour move on screen as they would in real life. This creates an accurate viewing of the models you see online, setting more true-to-life expectations of what they would look like once you wear them physically. Aside from helping customers, brick-and-mortar stores can also benefit from the technology by showcasing the full range of colours and frame designs for eyewear models they may not have on hand.

Next-gen smart glasses

Finally, moving onto even more sci-fi territory, the eyewear industry is buzzing with next-gen innovations that transform mere glasses and sunglasses into smart gadgets. OMNIVISION recently introduced a new 648p sing-chip liquid crystal on silicon panel for next-gen augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality glasses or head-mounted displays. The single-chip solution can support applications for displaying notifications on the user’s field of view or access to GPS for maps and directions.

Aside from AR, researchers are also actively looking into AI integration for smart glasses. This would elevate their use case from merely displaying information to generating information. While AI-powered glasses may take a while to fully develop and be ready for the public, prototypes and concepts, include recognising faces using photo training, generating relevant conversation starters and responses based on smartphone messages, and even providing menu advice at restaurants.

The eyewear industry in the UK is expected to continue its upward rise, especially as innovations push traditional glasses into the next level.