What is the point of belay glasses?
I was going through the REI website for some of the products and I stumbled upon this one here.
It's called Y & Y VERTICAL Classic Belay Glasses
The product punchline says:
Stop wrenching your neck to keep an eye on your climber. The Y & Y Vertical Classic Belay Glasses feature metal frames and high-quality prisms that allow you to look straight ahead while belaying.
Have anybody used this one? What purpose does this product serve? How is this supposed to work?
I agree that I can read the user manual and get on with it, but I'd prefer get a word from someone with a hands-on experience with it.
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Well, there is not much more to it than what you citation already says: It deflects your field of vision upwards, i.e. you can keep your head level, look into the glasses and you will see upwards. I could only use them twice, and I stopped pretty quickly, because the weird field of vision confused me. However there's tons of people using it and those that lent it to me, said that some discomfort in the beginning is normal and you will adjust quickly.
As to the purpose: Staring up at the climber a long time will provoke a stiff/painful neck, which is prevented by not having to tilt your head to look up.
As to how it works: It's a glass prism constructed such, that light entering at ~60deg up (perpendicular to the surface) is reflected first at the bottom, then again at the entry surface (total reflection) and finally leaves the glass towards your eyes (see the Wikipedia article).
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Belay glasses are (in Europe) so common that they are basically now part of the standard gym/crag equipment, just like an autolocking belay device. In some places, it can be rare to see someone without a pair on.
The primary benefit is comfort for the belayer: you have a much more relaxed neck position. This isn't an "old person" thing, it's just more comfortable to be looking straight ahead than craning your neck up.
The secondary benefit is safety: a belayer who can comfortably watch their climber is more likely to watch them during the entire climb without looking away to relax their neck. This means the belayer can give a much better belay: they can see the climber ready to clip, about to fall, etc. This means fewer short clips or hard catches.
Note, I'm discussing mostly lead climbing, where it's important to watch the climber closely. For top-roping, the benefit is slightly lower since you can get away with "feel".
One tip: I usually keep the belay glasses around my neck (or lower on my nose) for the first few clips, where I can see the climber directly. I then put the glasses on quickly around the third clip.
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Like it says in the other comment, these glasses are to be used when belaying so that you don't have to tilt your head up. The lenses are made of a prism-shaped glass that bends the light in such a way that you see what is happening up while looking straight in front of you. They help to avoid neck pain, and they also make it easier to always keep an eye on the climber.
So in theory the glasses are a great idea for people who climb often, or have to belay for a long time, or have problems with their neck. I see a lot of old folks wearing them, so might be especially appealing for older people. I believe the main reason those glasses are not that popular is that they used to be really expensive. I remember them costing around 200 euros a few years ago.
I have also tried belay glasses myself. And while most of my friends who have tried them really liked them, I couldn't stay for longer than a couple of minutes while wearing those glasses myself. Of course, it might be a matter of getting used to the feeling, but I was getting dizzy, and decided it was better for the climber if I took those glasses off.
So my verdict would be that in theory the belay glasses sound like a great idea, and most people seem to like them well enough, but you should try them out yourself before deciding to buy. Even trying them out in the shop could be informative enough.
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/19349. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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In addition to the other excellent answers, it's worth noting that many belay glasses have a slight (~1.25x) magnification effect, which sometimes makes it easier to work out small details on the rock when giving beta.
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/19362. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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