Trial: Vision magnifiers for long-sightedness

If you are finding it hard to read (or any other vision changes), your first stop should be the optometrist for an eye check. While long-sightedness is common, there may be other issues.

The easiest and best way to counteract long-sighted loss of vision is with reading glasses. These magnify whatever you look at, so while they’re useful for reading, they need to be removed to focus on the distance.

Other options to see up close

If reading glasses do a good job, why would you need other magnification options? Reading glasses aren’t worn all the time, so it’s easy to put them down and forget them. There will be times when you need magnification but you don’t have your glasses, for example reading tiny print on a medicine label or reading in dim light. This is when magnification gadgets come in handy. They can be kept in places you’ll commonly want to read text, such as in the kitchen or at your desk, while others are portable enough to carry everywhere.

Gadgets vs digital

When thinking about magnification gadgets, the first thing that comes to mind is a magnifying glass or sheet you can hold over a page. ‘Old-school’ gadgets such as these are typically made of acrylic plastic (glass is heavier) and you adjust the distance between them to focus.

Usually you can find them at a couple of magnification levels, typically from 2x to 4x magnification. A bigger diameter of lens means less curvature and therefore less magnification.

Magnifying glasses are simple to use and easily available, but we’re in the 21st century and of course there are digital solutions. If you have a smartphone it will have a camera that can zoom in on objects, so you’ve got a handy digital magnifier in your pocket.

To change the level of magnification, or zoom, you can use the camera app on a smartphone or tablet. Simply point the device at what you want to read and pinch to zoom or adjust the magnification slider on screen. You can switch on the device’s torch as well, if you’re trying to read in a dimly lit environment, such as the menu in a restaurant. You can even take a photo if you want a still image to read. But camera apps also automatically adjust the focus so the more you move the camera, the more the camera tries to focus, and the harder it can be to read the text.

Devices running iOS have a magnifying tool that is similar to the camera app, but it gives you the option to freeze the image and adjust the brightness and contrast, and uses colour filters to enhance the view. Most importantly, you can freeze or pause the image (without taking a photo) if you want more time to read the text, but don’t want to hold the phone steady. Android users need not despair – there are plenty of free third-party magnifying apps in the app store that work just the same.

How do they compare?

We wanted to get a hands-on feel for a few gadgets and see how easy they are to use. We chose six items for our triallists to read with medium to small writing, including curved and textured surfaces. Our three triallists have varying degrees of long-sightedness, which means they usually wear reading glasses.

The gadgets we compared were:

Credit card magnifying sheet

Bought at Whitcoulls for $9.99

---

A4 magnifying sheet

Bought at Whitcoulls for $21.99

---

2x magnifying glass with 4x magnification insert

Bought at Whitcoulls for $17.99

---

90mm magnifying glass and 60mm magnifying glass

Bought at variety store for $5

---

9.7" iPad (camera and magnifying app)

---

6.2" Android phone (camera and third-party magnifying app)

Digital or physical gadgets: which is better?

There were no clear winners in this competition, with our triallists preferring a combination. Portability was important for use outside the home and our triallists were aware of how conspicuous they looked when using a magnifying glass or tablet. In the privacy of home the bigger gadgets were preferred, especially when you’re more likely to read more text, such as in a newspaper, magazine or recipe.

What’s the best for using out and about?

Their preferred devices while shopping and reading menus were the smartphone or the credit card-size magnifying sheet. They’re portable, easy to use and do a good job. One described the phone as “easiest to use in public”, while the credit card-sized magnifying sheet was “compact and a handy size”.

What’s the best for use at home?

Our triallists found both digital and traditional devices would be helpful for reading around the house. The larger devices (large magnifying sheet and tablet) were preferred for home use as they could easily read more text. They also preferred the Helix and small variety store magnifying glasses for their ease of use.

On a digital device, is the camera or a magnifying app better?

The autofocus of the camera apps on both the tablet and phone were a big issue for our triallists, with one describing it as “annoying” and another as “bouncing all over the place”. While you can often adjust and disable the autofocus of the camera, our participants preferred the freeze or pause feature available on the dedicated magnification apps.

Are variety store gadgets good?

All our triallists found that the Helix magnifying glass (Whitcoulls, $15.50) did a great job of magnifying and it was easier to use than the variety store ones for $3. One described the 60mm variety store magnifying glass as “cramped” to hold and the 90mm one as heavy with a “too short” handle. In fact, the 90mm variety store one was the all-around loser, with all participants ranking it one of the worst to use.

Dangers of magnification gadgets

The convex lenses used in magnifying gadgets can actually be dangerous. They converge light into a single stream and can cause a fire if left sitting in the sun. So make sure any magnifying gadgets are covered when not in use. Digital devices use software to magnify, therefore they don’t pose this risk.