A Bifocal Dilemma
You’re a safety conscious worker. You wear all the correct PPE, including safety glasses, when required. You’ve discovered a problem though. You struggle reading small text. Plus, you have a hard time seeing details on parts or machines, especially small ones, too. So, you quickly take off your safety glasses, and use your readers for a few minutes. Then you put your safety eyewear back on.
You know this is a poor solution. You risk exposing your eyes to safety hazards for several minutes, and it only takes a few seconds to experience a devastating eye injury. Plus, switching eyewear disrupts productivity, and you don’t want that to happen either. At the same time, you need to see clearly to do your work well.
Enter bifocal safety eyewear. Specifically, 3M BX Dual Reader safety glasses.
3M BX Dual Reader Features
Dual readers, often called “occupational bifocals” give the convenience of a reader in a solid pair of safety glasses. The 3M BX Dual Reader glasses have both a reader section at the top and at the bottom of lenses.
Having top bifocals eases eye and neck strain by limiting the constant movement of lifting eyes high enough to see through a bottom reader section. Plumbers, electricians, dentists, mechanics, and pilots find that dual readers alleviate the stress overhead work can cause.
In addition to being amped up bifocals, the 3M BX Dual Reader safety glasses also protect against the sun’s harmful rays. The soft rubber nose pieces and extendable temples make them comfortable to wear too.
3M BX Dual Reader Review
We asked Mike, a machine repairman, to test out the 3M BX Dual Reader safety eyewear to see if they could perform well in a busy manufacturing environment. Mike used them in place of the standard safety eyewear he usually wore while reading electrical prints, wiring systems controls and reading tap and drill bit sizes.
Before trying the 3M BX Dual Reader, Mike wore his regular safety glasses until he needed to read small print. He then switched to non-safety eyewear even though he risked a write up for non-compliance as well as experiencing eye injury.
“The reader safety glasses are better than the method I was using because I no longer had to switch back and forth between regular safety glasses and reading glasses,” Mike said after trying the 3M BX for several weeks. “They are well made, adjustable, and allow you to use readers while still having the proper PPE on.”
Mike experienced one problem with the 3M BX Dual Reader glasses.
“Having the magnification on the top and bottom of lenses is distracting and makes wearing them all the time difficult."
His suggested solution?
"Move the magnification more to the top/bottom of the lenses so a larger area of regular vision is available.”
Mike plans to continue using the dual readers at work and recommends others in his situation try them out too. He may not wear them all the time, though, but at least he’ll now be wearing safety eyewear when he needs to read small print or work with small parts.
*Remember these reviews are by real people, not experts. In most cases, reviewers received the product for free and are allowed to keep the product for their use after the review. Reviewers are asked for their honest opinions after using the product, including suggestions for improvements.
