The 3M Virtua CCS safety glasses have a removable foam gasket around the inside of the frame that’s designed to both make them more comfortable and to form a more complete seal around the eyes. The foam was polarizing among our testers: Some liked the added protection during tasks that cause a high amount of small particles to be thrown into the air, but others found it restricted their peripheral vision too much. We also ran into fogging issues, which led us to dismiss this pair as a pick.
We looked at a few different pairs from Bollé, after they kept coming up in our research, including the Safety RUSH+ 41080, the Contour Metal, and Override over-glasses pair. We liked that the Rush+ came with a strap that kept the glasses secure, but the foam gasket was a mixed bag, and it isn’t removable like the one on the 3M pair. The Contour Metal was a nice-looking pair, but it was too heavy to reliably stay on my face, and the Overrides were too bulky and stiff compared with the other over-glasses models we tested. We also wanted to test the Bollé Safety 40306 over-glasses pair, which looked much less boxy than the other over-glasses options we tested, but they’ve been discontinued.
The Bouton 5900 safety glasses have a traditional hipster look, which might be appealing to some folks, but we found them to be too heavy on the face, and the folding mesh side shields were just textured enough to be noticeable and annoying in peripheral vision.
We tested a few goggle-type glasses for this guide, including a pair from DeWalt, Products Simplified, and Protective Equipment, but we found they were more than what most people need on a usual basis.
A cheap over-glasses option that has a good history of reviews on Amazon, the Gateway Safety 6980, just didn’t perform as well as the HexArmor pair, and they tended to rattle and rub up against our testers’ prescription glasses.
After looking into the HexArmor over-glasses, we also tried out their VS250 option. They’re a decent lightweight pair, but they tended to slip down the nose more than the Radians and didn’t have any adjustments to help counteract that shortcoming. Of the models we considered, they do look the most like normal sports sunglasses, and they come with a variety of lenses, including some that transition from tinted to more translucent (but those are more expensive).
In the hopes of finding something similar to the style of Ray-Bans or the cheap sunglasses we like, we tried out the MAGID Y50BKAFC, but all of our testers thought they were stiff and uncomfortable. Also, the thick frames and stiff boxy design leave a lot more space open around the eye while also blocking visibility, making this sort of a worst-of-all-worlds option.
The MCR Safety Crews BearKat glasses are a common sight at robotics competitions due to their affordability and availability, but we liked the Radians far better in terms of comfort.
Like our upgrade pick, the NoCry Over-Glasses pair offered a decent amount of adjustment options, but our testing panel preferred the HexArmor pair due to its more complete coverage and better fit.
We liked that the OnGuard Plano Trophy Safety Glasses seemed to provide good coverage and a few adjustment options, and that they come with a unique Velcro strap to help secure them to your face. But despite the adjustment options, our testers all found them uncomfortable to wear, with many complaining about the weight and how the nose bridge pinched their skin.
We also looked into the safety glasses offered by specialty companies like Oakley, which came up a few times in my discussion with robotics competition participants. But we ended up ruling them out of this testing due to their significantly higher price points. There are plenty of safety glasses that work extremely well without coming anywhere close to $140.
