Vision Pro Viewing Focal Distance

The very first entry on the Zeiss page says:

"Use your everyday eyeglass prescription issued by a U.S. eye doctor."

"We need your eyeglass prescription to create your ZEISS Optical Inserts – Prescription (sometimes also called distance prescription)"

ie: not your reading prescription, not your computer glasses prescription, just your standard comprehensive as normally issued by your eye doctor.

Kendall, here is my opinion… take it FWIW:

Your distance correction is -2.0 and you previously stated your reading vision is just about right with no glasses. This would give you an ADD of about +2.0 for reading at ~18” distance. Apple instructs you to use the *actual* reading distance ADD — they *specifically* state NOT to provide an intermediate distance ADD.

They will assume the ADD you provide is for a distance of ~18” and then will correct the +2.00 ADD for a focal distance of ~4-6’. This will result in a much smaller ADD that they will use for the lens (possibly about +1.00). If you give them an ADD for +1.00, they will assume this is for reading distance (18”) and correct it to +0.50 (guesstimate). This under-correction will likely result in eye fatigue. I suggest you have your doctor calculate your *actual* reading distance ADD and provide it to Apple per their instructions. Apple doesn’t expect you to make the corrections to their optics.

My situation is similar to yours. My Rx has an ADD of +1.75, but I use a +1.25 ADD for my computer glasses (~3’ distance). I provided Apple with the full +1.75 (as they requested) and the optics are perfect. They obviously aren’t blindly using an ADD of +1.75 since the image would appear blurry at a 4-6’ focal distance. I can use the AVP for hours with no eye fatigue and the image is clear.

You are overthinking this.

David Strait wrote: "...Not sure how that works, but assume the internal (permanent) lens place the apparent focal point a couple feet in front of you..."

I don't know whether the following is correct, but anyway:

"Focal distance in the context of VR headsets refers to the distance at which the lenses allow your eyes to focus comfortably. In the case of the Apple Vision Pro, the actual focal distance is set around six feet. 

This means that, regardless of the virtual distance of an object in the digital space, your eyes will focus as if that object were six feet away." Source:

Apple Vision Pro Optics & Focal Distance Explained - NetworkBuildz

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Kendall,

I'm 99% sure that Apple will make the correction for you. They know the ADD is for reading distance and will reduce the ADD for the correct distance of 4-6'. They specifically say to use the ADD for reading distance and DO NOT use an ADD for an intermediate distance (like computer glasses).

You will be "out-smarting" yourself!

It appears to be a bifocal problem. I tried it without the “corrected” lenses and it was sharp and crisp everywhere. The actual distance to the lenses stays the same, the 3D effect is achieved by the bifocal nature of the eyes judging distance. The distance areas of a bifocal lens blurs the physically close display. It was immediately obvious fix that worked. Their optics engineers need a new perspective.

The problem is that the screen is a fixed distance from your eyes. Bifocals have different focal lengths for different distances. This means the bifocal lenses from zeiss with multiple focal distances will render most of the screen out of focus. Since the screens apparent distance is correct for the center of your glasses, where your eye naturally goes and your head turns, so the artificial elements (centered) look clear but the rest of the area blurred.

A bunch of optics engineers missed a basic thing. I’m an autistic genius with learning disabilities and saw the problem and solution immediately at the demo. Apple, give me a call, you need a new design perspective.

The lenses you get when you order them are NOT bi-focals or progressives. Its just single vision lenses but they 'adjust' the distance prescription somewhat based on your ADD factor. What they could never tell me is how much.

That helps a lot! And explains why my distance vision is not gonna work well because with distance glasses I cannot focus properly at 4-6’. My computer glasses actually work perfectly for that distance so I might just get her to do that prescription as my VR one after she tests the inserts.

Thanks. I feel that I leaned about how glasses work much more than I ever wanted in my life :) but scientific curiosity keeps bugging me…

if somebody has perfect “reading eyes” and only uses glasses for distance, should then ADD be exactly equal but position to the distance glasses correction? So, eg, if somebody uses -2/-2 distance glasses, and has perfect close vision, then ADD should be 2/2, to indicate that 0 correction is needed for reading distance…

Ok, got the new -1.25 prescription lenses and WOW! Soooo much better! This has fixed the issues for me (I almost feel like my original computer prescription of -0.75 would also have worked great. But now the vision is not as blurry as it was before using too strong of a distance prescription.

So I think the idea that the focal distance is 4.5 to 6 feet is right on the money so if you have an odd prescription like mine, get your doctor to write you one specifically for the best vision at 6 feet and it will be perfect.

This thread actually makes me feel better.

As my paid ChatGPT-4 subscription makes clear, ZEISS wants a “Full Manifest Refraction”, separate measurements for your distance and near correction needs. From this they can model your vision, and design an appropriate insert.

This design process is surely beyond anyone weighing in on this thread, and beyond any customer-facing Apple employee. You’re correcting a device several inches from your face, with an apparent optical distance of six feet. Anyone who actually understands how to do this could make more money other ways than talking with you.

Like many here, I have an amazing optometrist who has helped me tune prescriptions for each use case. I figured that if I asked him to prescribe “six feet” for me, we’d do better than having Zeiss guess from a standard prescription. The optics are in fact too complicated for this to work. Zeiss needs a model of my vision, and that’s called a “Full Manifest Refraction”.

Could one do better? I’m reminded of a friend with colon cancer. I had him ask about a procedure that could be reversed in the future, when an artificial “valve” became available. The answer was that any such development would need to work with standard practice, so the most common procedure would actually be the best bet.

Here, there’s a most common procedure, a “Full Manifest Refraction”. As others say, don’t overthink it.

I have the same question and spent time on the phone with Apple and they could not answer my question at all.

It is really unclear on the Apple web site that discusses the prescription requirements for the Vision Pro if it is best to use your full distance prescription so the focal distance is going to be distance or if something more middle distance is better:

Using Apple Vision Pro with vision prescriptions and vision conditions - Apple Support

There it says to not use computer prescriptions so I ordered my lenses with my -2.00 for distance and 1.25 ADD and the site said it would adjust it down to reduce eye fatigue and I cannot find any information that says exactly what mine was reduced to. Is it just a little, or all the way down to -0.75? Trying them out at the moment it feels to me like its just a bit too strong as I have a different prescription for computer work and with that I can see most middle distance stuff just fine. It is -0.75 mono vision.

Then the same link above has conflicting information because it says that if you need reading glasses, you can get reading glass inserts for the Vision Pro. Makes no sense if you can see fine in the distance? If you can see fine in the distance and need readers for close up work, then why would you ever need reading lense inserts for the Vision Pro?

So seems to me perhaps my computer prescription would have been better? Tempted to test the theory by ordering with by computer single lense prescription and see. But Apple and ZEISS were not able to answer it for me, and would not be able to tell me exactly WHAT my lenses are?

I have used it with my -1.75 contacts and it seems decent, but I wish I had my older -1.5 ones to try. But my contacts always dry out so I don't like using those and I have to have 1.00 readers if I have those installed to use the computer.

Celestar1 wrote: "...Apple, give me a call, you need a new design perspective."

Celestar1 ~ Although Apple administers this community, that doesn't include reading each of thousands of daily posts for possible instructions. However, Apple will "read all feedback carefully" here:

Feedback - Apple Vision Pro

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