Occupational lenses are a type of progressive lens designed to give you clear, comfortable vision at near and intermediate distances.
Unlike everyday varifocals, which provide near, intermediate and long-distance vision, occupational lenses concentrate more of the lens on the distances you use immediately around you.
Think reading a book, checking your phone, working at a computer or speaking to someone across your desk.
This makes occupational lenses particularly useful for people with presbyopia who spend long periods working on computers, reading or performing other close-range tasks.
What Are Occupational Lenses Used For?
Occupational lenses are used for activities that require clear near and intermediate vision, particularly when working indoors. Their larger near and intermediate viewing areas can make tasks such as computer work, reading and using digital devices more comfortable than with everyday varifocals.
They're particularly useful for people with presbyopia who struggle to see clearly up close or at intermediate distances.
Some real-life examples include:
- Working at a computer – giving you a wider view of your monitor without continually moving or tilting your head to find the clearest part of the lens.
- Reading or desk work – allowing you to move between paperwork, your phone and computer screen more naturally.
- Meetings across a table – providing useful intermediate vision for seeing the people and objects immediately around you.
- Cooking or hobbies – offering clarity for activities that involve several close and intermediate distances, such as cooking, crafting, painting or playing an instrument.
It's worth noting that occupational lenses aren't designed for driving or other activities requiring unrestricted long-distance vision.
Instead, they're designed to excel within your immediate surroundings.
What’s the Difference Between Occupational Lenses & Everyday Varifocals?
The main difference is the range of vision each lens is designed to prioritise.
Everyday varifocals provide near, intermediate and distance vision within a single lens. They're designed for general day-to-day wear, allowing you to read your phone, look across a room, walk outdoors or drive without changing your glasses.
Occupational lenses sacrifice long-distance vision to provide more usable space for near and intermediate vision. This can make them particularly comfortable for prolonged computer work and other close-range activities.
Imagine spending eight hours at your desk.
Your computer monitor might be 60–80cm away, your phone 30–40cm away and your colleague sitting a metre or two across from you. You don't necessarily need to see a road sign 50 metres away.
That's exactly the kind of environment occupational lenses are designed for.
For this reason, they're often used as a complementary or "second pair" alongside everyday varifocals.
What Kind of Occupational Lenses Can I Get?
At Banton Frameworks, you can choose between two occupational lens ranges:
Varilux® Immersia™ – our premium occupational lens option from Essilor, designed around the near and intermediate distances commonly used for smartphones, computers, work and face-to-face conversation.
Nova Office – our more affordable occupational lens option, available in three working distances for desk, office and wider indoor environments.
Let's take a closer look at both.
Varilux® Immersia™ Occupational Lenses
Varilux® Immersia™ is Essilor's latest range of occupational lenses, designed to support prolonged near and intermediate vision.
They're particularly suited to modern working life, where you might continually switch your attention between a smartphone, laptop, desktop monitor and the people around you.
Rather than trying to accommodate full distance vision like an everyday varifocal, Immersia™ dedicates more of the lens to your immediate surroundings.
Essilor designed the lenses around three particularly important viewing areas:
- Smartphone distance – for close near-vision tasks.
- Working distance – the area directly in front of you, such as your laptop or desktop monitor.
- Conversational distance – allowing you to see people and objects further into your immediate surroundings.
This approach provides expanded near and intermediate vision whilst encouraging a more natural head position when using screens.
The Varilux® Immersia™ range comes in two versions.
#1 Varilux® Immersia™ Mid
Immersia™ Mid prioritises near and intermediate vision within approximately 5 feet (1.5 metres).
It's intended for prolonged and relatively static activities where most of what you're looking at remains reasonably close to you.
For example, imagine sitting at your desk and moving between your smartphone, paperwork, laptop and desktop monitor. Immersia™ Mid gives these frequently used near and intermediate distances more space within your lenses.
It's therefore particularly well suited to prolonged computer work and switching between different digital devices.
#2 Varilux® Immersia™ Room
Immersia™ Room extends your useful intermediate vision to approximately 10 feet (3 metres).
This makes it better suited to more dynamic indoor environments where you regularly switch between close work and things happening further away.
You might be working on your laptop one moment, checking your phone the next, then looking up to speak to someone elsewhere in the room.
You retain the strong near and intermediate performance of an occupational lens, but with additional range for moving and interacting within your immediate surroundings.
Key features of Varilux® Immersia™ lenses
Designed for modern screen use
Immersia™ has been developed around the way people actually use smartphones, computers and other digital devices. Instead of treating intermediate vision as a relatively small part of the lens, these working distances are fundamental to its design.
Expanded near vision
According to Essilor's internal simulations, Varilux® Immersia™ provides a wider area of sharp near vision compared with standard progressive lenses. This gives your close and intermediate tasks more usable visual space.
More natural posture
With everyday progressive lenses, you can sometimes find yourself lifting or moving your head to locate the correct part of the lens for your computer monitor.
Immersia™ positions its viewing zones with screen use and natural posture in mind, making near and intermediate vision easier to access without exaggerated head movements.
W.A.V.E 2.0™ technology
Varilux® Immersia™ also incorporates Essilor's W.A.V.E 2.0™ lens technology, which considers pupil size and helps control higher-order aberrations to maintain the quality of your vision under different lighting conditions.
Two working ranges
Instead of lots of variations, you have two straightforward choices: Immersia™ Mid for vision up to approximately 1.5m or Immersia™ Room for vision up to approximately 3m.
Crizal® coatings available
As an Essilor lens, Immersia™ can be combined with selected Crizal® coatings to provide additional protection against things such as reflections, scratches, smudges, dust and water.
Who are Varilux® Immersia™ lenses for?
Varilux® Immersia™ lenses are particularly useful for people with presbyopia who spend significant amounts of time working at near and intermediate distances.
If you already wear everyday varifocals but find yourself struggling to comfortably use a computer for prolonged periods, Immersia™ can work as a complementary second pair specifically for your desk, office or other close-range activities.
The Mid version makes sense when your activities are concentrated around a desk or computer workstation, whereas Room gives you greater freedom if you regularly move your attention between your desk and people or objects elsewhere in the room.
A useful way of thinking about it is footwear.
You could technically wear the same shoes for everything, but you'd probably choose different footwear for walking around town and hiking up a mountain.
Your glasses can work in much the same way.
Everyday varifocals are designed to handle a huge variety of distances throughout your day. Occupational lenses are more specialised, allowing them to dedicate more of the lens to the particular distances you need for prolonged close work.
Nova Office Occupational Lenses
Nova Office lenses are our more affordable option for occupational progressives.
They're designed to provide a wide, clear field of vision from near through to intermediate distances, making them particularly useful for desk work, meetings and indoor activities where long-distance clarity isn't essential.
They come in three focal capacity options:
Nova Desk: clear vision up to 1.5m
Best for close-up work such as reading, writing and computer use. This option concentrates your useful vision around your immediate desk or workstation.
Nova Office Pro: clear vision up to 2m
A balanced choice for computer tasks, meetings and general office work where you need slightly more intermediate range.
Nova Room: clear vision up to 4m
This option provides the greatest working distance within the Nova Office range, making it useful for larger offices, workshops, classrooms and studios.
Key features of Nova Office lenses
Wide vision zones – a clear field of view across near and intermediate distances.
Smooth transitions – digitally designed progression between the near and intermediate vision zones.
Comfortable posture – the larger working areas can reduce the need for awkward head movements when performing prolonged close-range tasks.
Optimised for indoor use – particularly suited to office, desk and other close working environments.
Adaptable – available for a wide range of prescriptions, including higher additions.
Complimentary HMC – available with a hard multi-coating for anti-reflective and scratch-resistant properties.
Optional blue-violet light filtering – choose to upgrade to Satin Blue lens coating which protects your eyes from high energy visible (HEV) blue light emitted from digital screens.
Who are Nova Office lenses for?
Nova Office lenses are ideal for professionals and creatives who spend long periods working indoors.
That could include office workers and accountants who spend most of the day looking between paperwork and monitors, but occupational lenses aren't exclusively for computer users.
Chefs, musicians, artists, craftspeople and anyone performing detailed work at several close and intermediate distances may also benefit from them.
The important consideration isn't necessarily your profession. It's where you need to see clearly while doing it.
How Do I Order Occupational Lenses?
Occupational lenses aren’t currently listed on our prescription lens menu. But if you’d like them fitted to your Banton Frameworks glasses, simply drop us an email and we’ll arrange everything with you directly on a one-to-one basis.
Occupational Lenses FAQ's
Can you wear occupational lenses all the time?
Occupational lenses aren't intended to replace everyday glasses in every situation. They're deliberately optimised for near and intermediate vision, which is precisely what makes them so useful at a desk or indoors. The trade-off is reduced long-distance vision, so they're unsuitable for activities such as driving. Many people therefore use occupational lenses as a second pair alongside their everyday varifocals or distance glasses, changing between them depending on what they're doing.
What are occupational lenses good for?
Occupational lenses are particularly good for activities where most of your vision is concentrated within your immediate surroundings. Computer work is an obvious example, but they're also useful for reading, using smartphones and tablets, cooking, crafting, playing an instrument or working in a studio or workshop. Because they don't need to dedicate as much lens space to far-distance vision, they can provide more usable near and intermediate vision than an everyday varifocal.
Are occupational lenses more expensive than varifocals?
Not necessarily. The price of occupational lenses varies according to the lens design, material, prescription and any additional coatings you choose. Premium occupational lenses can therefore cost more than some everyday varifocals, while other occupational designs may be more affordable. If you'd like an accurate price for your prescription and preferred lens type, get in touch with us and we can provide this before you order.
How long does it take to get used to occupational lenses?
Adaptation varies from person to person, but occupational lenses can be relatively intuitive because they're designed around a more restricted range of vision than everyday varifocals. You'll still need to become familiar with where the different powers sit within your lenses, so give yourself some time to use them consistently in the environment they're intended for. Accurate measurements and the correct choice of working distance are also important for getting the best from occupational lenses.
Are occupational lenses the same as bifocals?
No. Traditional bifocals contain two distinct prescription zones, usually one for distance and another for reading, separated by a visible line. Occupational lenses are progressive lenses, so their prescription changes gradually through the lens without a visible dividing line. They're also specifically designed to prioritise near and intermediate distances rather than the conventional near-and-distance combination associated with bifocals.
Summary
- Occupational lenses are progressive lenses optimised for near and intermediate vision.
- They're particularly useful for computers, reading, smartphones, desk work, hobbies and other prolonged close-range activities.
- Everyday varifocals provide near, intermediate and long-distance vision, whereas occupational lenses dedicate more of the lens to your immediate surroundings.
- Varilux® Immersia™ is our premium occupational lens range from Essilor
- Varilux® Immersia™ Mid provides vision up to approximately 5ft / 1.5m and is particularly suited to desk and computer work.
- Varilux® Immersia™ Room extends this range to approximately 10ft / 3m, making it better suited to multitasking and interacting with people around you.
- Varilux® Immersia™ can be combined with selected Crizal® lens coatings.
- Nova Office is our more affordable occupational lens range, available in working distances of 1.5m, 2m and 4m.
- Nova Office lenses include a complimentary HMC option or can be upgraded with a Satin Blue coating.
Hopefully you found this article helpful.
For more information about progressive lenses, please check out our other varifocal glasses blog posts before our next release of handmade glasses. Thanks for stopping by.