If you misplace your pair of glasses or run through your contacts, you’ll need a new eye prescription. This results in an often-delayed visit to your eye doctor. Dutch startup easee is changing that with its online (personalized) eye test. Launched in 2016 with its head office in Amsterdam, the startup recently partnered with Ace & Tate, a stylish online-first eyewear brand to help customers with online eye testing and purchase of prescription eyewear.
Disrupting an age-old industry
Getting your eyes tested and buying contacts/eyeglasses has always worked the traditional way for last 100 years, that is you book an appointment with an optometrist followed by an arduous process of an in-person visit.
“Over 60% of the world’s population needs glasses, a number that is increasing rapidly. Our idea was to make live of all these people easier with an online test that you can do at home in 15 minutes,” Yves Prevoo, Founder & CEO easee.
With this in mind, Yves set about to offer a service that would not only provide ease of vision testing but also be as authentic and reliable as an in-person visit to the eye doctor.
How it works?
“You only need a smartphone, computer and 3 meter of space. The phone serves as a remote control, while the test shows you different images on the computer. The test takes 15-20 minutes, after which the preliminary results are shown. The test result can then be checked by a registered optometrist, who will issue an eyewear prescription. With this prescription you can shop directly online (or offline),” easee.
7 developers, 6 optometrists, 2 ophthalmologists and 1000s of hours of R&D
The mission was accomplished when Yves had his computer programmers develop ‘smart algorithms’ capable of accurately testing eyesight. It took “2 years, 7 developers, 6 optometrists, 2 ophthalmologists and thousands of hours of research and development” for Yves to get the ‘class I Medical Device’ status for easee to ensure the safety and quality of the technology.
Partnering with Ace & Tate
Selling merchandise online is never as easy as it seems. The easee team realized this and teamed up with Ace and Tate, an up-market eyewear brand that sells prescription glasses online.
The partnership gives easee customers access to a physical store where they can personally visit for follow-up issues. Ace and Tate operates 28 brick and mortar stores across Europe including Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and other EU countries.
The test is suitable for a large group of glasses wearers (minus prescription up to -2.5 and cylinder up to 2.5) aged between 18 – 40 years.
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