Health

Take Online Eye Tests From The Comfort Of Your Home

Online Eye Tests

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With internet poking its way into almost every field of life, it has now become possible to go even for online eye tests. With these online tests, you can test your eyesight right from your couch, without physically visiting an eye specialist. These days, you can find these tests on a number of websites, and you can access them easily from your laptop, computer or smartphone. Let’s see how they work and how accurate they are.

What You Can Check with Online Eye Tests

Here Are A Few Things You Can Check With An Online Eye Test:

  • Sharpness of your vision
  • Your eyes’ sensitivity to light
  • Possibility of astigmatism, which is a condition in which things look stretched and blurry
  • Colour blindness

Such tests can prove to be helpful in certain situations such as if you lose or break your glasses or lenses, and you are far from home to get a new prescription. But these tests should not be treated as a replacement for the conventional visit to an eye specialist. This is because these eye tests can only check your vision, but they cannot check your eye health in detail. They will not be able to detect any condition threatening your eyesight, such as glaucoma, macular degeneration, or cataract. If you want to get your eyes checked for such conditions, or if you have an eye infection or injury, then you should visit your eye doctor without fail.

Who Are These Online Tests For?

Any healthy person between 18 and 39 years of age can take these online eye tests, provided that they meet the following conditions:

  • If you already wear eyeglasses with medium strength
  • If you have already gone through a complete eye test at a clinic and you know that your eyes are otherwise healthy
  • If you have no risk for an eye disease, such as high blood pressure or diabetes

Even if you are within the age limit of 18 to 39, and if you are in healthy condition otherwise, you should still go for regular eye exams as recommended by your eye doctor.

How An Online Eye Test Works?

To have an online eye test, you will need to sit at a given distance from your computer or phone screen. Some tests also ask you to download an app on your smartphone to take the test. If you already wear prescription contacts or eyeglasses, the test will ask you to wear them during the test. Some tests only check your vision, and if some problem is identified in the test results, then you will need to see an eye doctor physically. Some websites also offer prescription contacts and glasses based on the test results through email. You can use this prescription to buy your glasses or contacts online or offline. Websites that offer prescription online usually charge some fee, and this fee is often not covered by insurers. So, if you want your insurance company to pay for your eye test, check which eye doctors are covered by them and visit them physically to get your eyes checked.

Accuracy Of Online Eye Tests

Doctors are still not sure whether an online eye test is accurate or not. Because they are still new in the industry, not much is known as to how they compare to a physical eye exam at an eye doctor’s clinic. However, you need to remember that there are special instructions that you need to follow during an eye test, such as sitting at a particular distance from the screen and holding the screen at a certain angle. If you do not take the test exactly as per the instructions, you may not get accurate results. Apart from that, such tests are not meant for people with strong prescription glasses. If you are not very computer-savvy or smartphone savvy, these tests will not be of any good to you.

So, before you take online eye tests, make sure that you know what you can achieve with it and what not. In addition to that, keep going for regular check-ups to an eye doctor to ensure healthy eyes and vision.

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