Gaming is, by nature, competitive. And competitive people, by nature, seek improvement. This means practice, but it also means having the right equipment. We speak, of course, of gaming glasses.

If you believe in serious gaming, gaming glasses are already on your radar. But what are they and do they actually work? Let’s take a look.

What Are Gaming Glasses?

Gaming glasses from different manufacturers promise to increase a gamer's performance by enhancing depth perception, color and contrast, and even increasing reaction time. Manufacturers design some dedicated gaming glasses to wear comfortably with a range of wireless headsets.

Most of the promises regarding increasing a gamer’s performance come from blocking blue light. In the simplest terms, “gaming glasses” are usually just blue light blocking glasses marketed toward gamers.

How Do Gaming Glasses Work?

Blue light is a particular wavelength of light from artificial light sources, including computers and mobile devices. Blue light has some benefits, including increasing alertness. The downside is that, according to Harvard Medical School, too much exposure to blue light may lead to sleep problems and other health concerns.

Wavelengths of light
Image Credit: Peter Corbett/Flickr

Whether they’re for work or pleasure, blue light blocking glasses work by incorporating a pigment into the lenses that strips the blue wavelength out of light before the light enters your eye.

We can say, with all the confidence of modern science, that blue light filtering glasses work. But do gaming glasses that incorporate blue light filtering improve your game, as most manufacturers claim?

Is There Any Proof That Gaming Glasses Work?

While there have been a lot of studies on blue light and the impact that it has on our eyes and bodies, there have been no studies on the improved performance that manufacturers of gaming glasses promise. The consensus is that gaming glasses protect your eyes but might not save your stats.

That doesn't mean that gaming glasses don't work, it just means that we don't have hard numbers backing up the claim. But, the theory makes sense. When Oakley and Turtle Beach teamed up to release gaming glasses, they created a page on the science behind the glasses. Some of it makes sense, some might not.

Related: Turtle Beach and Oakley Team Up for New Gaming Glasses

According to Oakley, its gaming glasses (with blue light filtering) enhance color and contrast and "sharpen vision." The glasse do this in the same way that Oakley products enhance performance in other sports; by filtering out specific wavelengths of light.

Oakley designs lenses for other conditions or pursuits, like snow and cycling. But Oakley isn't clear on how it does this for gaming. In gaming, the same digital display creates similes of drastically different environments.

Phrased another way: If Hoth and Endor from Star Wars were actual places, you would wear different sports goggles in each place. Why? Because the lighting conditions and colors in each environment are drastically different. So, how could wearing one pair of glasses improve your game in both digital maps in a game like Star Wars Battlefront?

The explainer pages associated with gaming glasses don't answer this kind of question concretely. However, Oakley goes some way to explaining how their different lenses suit different real-world environments.

The potential answer, "blue light is the only light that matters in gaming," is promising if a little anticlimactic. This approach filters out "noise" blue light that the display creates, making other colors more vibrant, similar to snow goggles that help you see through reflected light. If Oakley has a more complex and satisfying answer, we couldn't find it.

As far as whether gaming glasses actually work, the answer is mixed.

Do they improve contrast and color? Yes.

Do they improve depth perception? Maybe.

Do they improve reaction time? Probably not.

Who Makes Gaming Glasses? What's the Price Range?

So you're still interested, or maybe more interested, in gaming glasses. Who makes them? How much do they cost?

If you're curious, the gaming glasses made by Turtle Beach and Oakley might be a little pricey at $219 and $166, but they aren't the only manufacturers out there.

J+S Vision makes glasses for gaming and general computer use that are closer to the $20-$30 range. Gunnar has an entire product line of dedicated gaming glasses ranging from around $50 to over $100. HyperX Gaming has a dedicated set of gaming glasses that falls in that similar price range.

When shopping for gaming glasses, remember that some have different price ranges for prescription lenses or attachments that use prescription lenses that you already wear.

Can Glasses Up Your Game?

gamer wearing glasses

In the end, the effectiveness of "gaming glasses" hides behind science. There's genuine science behind blue light filtering and some gaming glasses incorporate very real design features to make them pair well with other gaming accessories. But, there's also a lot of good old-fashioned marketing involved.

Whether you're skeptical of "gaming glasses" or you want more versatile style options, consider exploring standard blue light filtering glasses before you put down money on gaming glasses. The benefits are likely to be identical.

Image Credit: Marco Verch/Flickr