Designs for Vision has been in business for 57 years, in other words, they were correcting vision well before almost anyone else. Shelly speaks with Jody Klager, Director of Low-vision Services of Designs for Vision to learn about the company's custom prescription telescopes and microscopes for vision correction and enhancement.
Blind Bargains audio coverage of CSUN 2018 is generously sponsored by the American Foundation for the Blind.
Transcript
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Hide transcriptTranscribed by Grecia Ramirez
Almost live from beautiful San Diego, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of CSUN 2018, featuring team coverage from across the Exhibit Hall and beyond, brought to you by the American Foundation for the Blind.
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Now, here’s Shelly Brisbin.
Shelly Brisbin: Welcome back to Blind Bargains. We’re on the floor at CSUN 2018, and I’m talking with Jody from Designs for Vision.
Hi, Jody. How are you?
Jody Klager: Okay. I’m doing great. How are you?
SB: I’m well. Welcome to the podcast.
JK: Thank you.
SB: Tell me about Designs for Vision. I wasn’t familiar with your company, and then you embarrassed me by telling me you’ve been around 57 years and so I should know better. And what do people need to know about Designs for Vision if they might not know?
JK: Designs for Vision is a manufacturer of custom-made optics for the partially sighted. We make head-borne telescopes and microscopes.
SB: So you have a series of products here in increasing powers that are mounted on very small glasses frames. I think people might be familiar – who are low-vision – with telescopes and microscopes that are head borne, but I was struck by the fact that yours are a fairly lightweight frames that they’re on.
JK: Yes. They are relatively lightweight.
SB: Yeah.
JK: We try to make them lightweight. We’ve also tried to make them a little more attractive. A telescope on a frame is a telescope on a frame –
SB: True.
JK: -- but we can do our best to make it more attractive. What separates us from everyone else is that our products are custom made.
SB: Okay.
JK: We put the patient’s prescription in the telescope, otherwise I’m simply magnifying their blur. I have to correct their blur, and then magnify. We then mount the telescopes through the lens, bringing the telescope as close as possible to the eye, giving you the widest possible field of view. And field of view is key in magnification.
SB: Absolutely. So what’s the range of magnification that you offer? I know they’re custom made, but I’m sure – they’re general range.
JK: Any – we have two series. In the Galilean series, the range is at – from 1.7 to 4.0. Again, as we increase magnification, we decrees field of view.
SB: Right.
JK: In the Keplerian series, which is the expanded field series, we go from a 2X to an 8X.
SB: And those are slight – they’re bigger telescopes in order to give you larger – bigger field of views?
JK: Correct.
SB: Okay.
JK: They have a proof prism. So the telescope itself is slightly longer, a little bit heavier, but it gives you that big, nice field of view.
SB: And these are, as you said, prescription products. So somebody would go to their ophthalmologist or low-vision specialist, and they would have these devices specifically prescribed for them?
JK: That is correct.
SB: Okay.
JK: They would see their ophthalmologist or their low-vision optometrist to have these prescribed for them.
SB: And what is the – I know that this is probably really wide and it varies based on subsidies and stuff, but is there a price range that you can talk about for this –
JK: I would say probably between fifteen hundred and twenty-five hundred.
SB: Okay.
JK: That would be a range of – it depends on power, the frame, and prescription, the lenses –
SB: Sure.
JK: -- there are a lot of variables.
SB: And you talked about the telescopes. Tell me about the microscopes.
JK: Microscopes are for near. They typically fit monocularly. The most commonly prescribed is called the Clear Image. It offers a wide, flat field of view.
SB: Okay. And is that also a prescribed product?
JK: Yes, it is.
SB: Okay.
JK: Everything we make is a prescribed product. And we can put a prescription in the microscope as well.
SB: Great. Tell people who might want to get more information where they can contact Designs for Vision.
JK: We’re on the web at www.designsforvision.com, and they would be able to get my contact information from the web as well. We’re in Bohemia, New York, and we ship all over the world, and we work with doctors all over the world.
SB: Great. Jody, thanks so much for your time.
JK: Thank you.
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