June 01, 2016
Glasses Designed to Combat Screen-Induced Sleeplessness
If you’re one of those people unable to resist the lure of a glowing screen – tapping away at a smartphone or laptop until the wee hours – Japanese eyewear company JINS may have a product for you. The company recently released JINS Screen Night, yellow-tinted spectacles meant to improve sleep quality for the truly tech-addicted.
The idea is this: Blue light, emitted naturally by the sun and not-so-naturally by the screens of phones, tablets and other devices, helps to activate your body. Prolonged screen exposure at night can confuse circadian rhythms, affecting your sleep cycle. JINS Screen Night is said to filter out 60% of melatonin-reducing blue light. A small 2015 study in Japan found that people who wore JINS Screen Night for two hours before sleep while using luminous digital devices had a better quality of sleep than those wearing control glasses, according to JINS.
I previously wrote about another blue-light blocking product, JINS Screen. These clear glasses cut blue light exposure by 25% and can be worn throughout the day by office workers, as either prescription or nonprescription glasses. JINS Screen Night goes a little further in protection from blue light, though the lenses’ obvious yellow tint means you might not want to wear them in public.
The company sent me a pair of its JINS Screen Night to try out. I was impressed, first, by the almost overwhelming variety of frame styles and colors available on JINS’ website, eventually choosing a blunted cat’s eye frame in a color known as “Magenta Petal.”
I wore the glasses through several evenings of late-night phone surfing, and the lenses’ yellow tint made the screen appear less harsh in my dark living room. I also felt a little more peaceful when I finally put the phone down and went to bed, though I can’t say it made a whole lot of difference in my nighttime routine, since I don’t typically struggle with falling asleep. Still, JINS has had positive reports from other sources: Nisha Baxi, a Microsoft employee, says she used to spend over half an hour trying to get to bed after using her phone. After using JINS Screen Night, she adds, “I was able to fall asleep almost right away.”
The glasses, available in prescription and nonprescription versions, are on sale online, and cost $80, plus the cost of the frame. JINS has taken other steps into tech-enhanced eyewear, designing smart glasses that perform functions such as monitoring fatigue, tracking posture and cataloging calories burned. The MEME is currently available in Japan, and JINS has said in the past that it plans to bring the product to the U.S. sometime this year.