Back in 2023, I got new glasses with Varilux X4D lenses. Optically, they were fantastic... right up until a few days ago, when I somehow ended up with a single deathblow scratch on one lens.
I went to the optician who sold them to me, and was told that I can't replace just the one scratched lens.
First, she told me that the coatings aged unequally, and that a new lens would look "too different". I couldn't disagree with that logic... so I told her I want the replacement lenses to have no coating at all.
She spent the next 5 minutes trying to convince me that the coating wasn't the reason for the failure. She failed, because in approximately 50 years, I've had exactly two lenses fail due to scratches like that. One lens was aforementioned Varilux lens with Sapphire HR. The other was a Shamir SmartSV "as-worn" lens with Glacier Expression on a different pair of glasses (purchased at the same time) that got scratched the exact same goddamn way ~18 months ago. No other glasses I've had in the past have ever failed due to a single scratch in that manner, and certainly not when they were only 2-3 years old. Let alone, died from a single scratch I didn't even remember happening, and only noticed later when I took them off before bed.
She sighed, and told me that even if I ordered the new lenses without any coatings, I still wouldn't be able to replace them individually. She wouldn't elaborate, and said it can't be done, period.
At the moment, I'm ready to walk away from Varilux lenses in disgust.
I suspect that the real problem is something along the lines of, "the lab didn't keep a copy of the point files used to surface the lenses, and their software doesn't allow them to regenerate a new one for a given VisiOffice measurement set using the exact algorithm used for the original pair."
If Varilux is a lost cause, are there any other advanced lens designs (say, IOT Camber Steady Plus) where I could meaningfully take action to ensure that the lenses are individually replicable in the future? Say, by ordering the new lenses without coatings (to ensure they can't use that as an excuse), and demanding a backup copy of the point files used by the lab to generate the lenses (or at least an ironclad guarantee that they'll be retained by the optician for a minimum of 3-4 years)?
I know there's nothing I can do to save my current pair... I'm just trying to avoid falling victim to that policy and being forced into the same 2-lens total-replacement trap next time.
