Cheap sunglasses

Looking for cheap sunglasses with real UV protected lenses. Or a cheap frame and I can take them to an optician who could swap the lenses? (In that case I would require a recommendation for an optician).
This is for using on the scooter. If I lose them I won’t care.
I lost a pair of Ray Bans and Gucci sunglasses in the past, so cheap is best in this scenario.

Can anyone recommend anywhere in and around Taipei/NT city?

Cheers.

Any and all nightmarkets.

I may be paranoid, but I wouldn’t try to buy those here. Cheap sunglasses? Plenty of them. Claimed UV protection? Lots of them. Real UV protection? I wouldn’t really trust that claim on cheap sunglasses in Taiwan. If UV protection is important to you, either spend more (still not necessarily much of a guarantee …) or buy them in North America or Europe.

I may be paranoid, but I wouldn’t try to buy those here. Cheap sunglasses? Plenty of them. Claimed UV protection? Lots of them. Real UV protection? I wouldn’t really trust that claim on cheap sunglasses in Taiwan. If UV protection is important to you, either spend more (still not necessarily much of a guarantee …) or buy them in North America or Europe.[/quote]
I used to think that too. But a friend in Taichung bought some fake brand sunglasses from Bangkok and took them to an opticians in Taichung who had some device that could test if they were UV protected and up to standard and low and behold they were!
So he didn’t need to get the lenses replaced.
This shows the device:
youtube.com/watch?v=yywGRtppRA8

Maybe it’s the Texan in me, but when I see this thread title, the first thing I think of is ZZ Top.

I think you could also try Decathlon for some inexpensive sunglasses. I’ve seen several options there.

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Nice scomargo. All the talk of sunglasses and nightmarkets made me think of this (I like your song better, though):

Carrefour has cheap sunglasses. The sports section has pairs for cycling, etc.

I can’t seem to find some mid-priced sunglasses anywhere. Or even many cheap ones for that matter.

I went to various sporting goods stores, tried walking around Ximen’s shops, tried Shinkong Mitsukoshi…

The sporting stores had a couple cheap pairs, and some made for skiing. The mall had 9000nt Ray Bans and crap. Where is there a decent selection of sunglasses in the sub-3000 range?

Go to regular glasses shops. They sell sunglasses too and I’m sure there are options around NTD 3000.

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true dat.
For under NT$3000, can get prescription glasses that slowly turn into shades under UV, or you can get pure sunglasses.
I have both kinds, and my eyes definitely can tell the difference out in the blue-sky sun. All those glass stores have UV testers to show you how the sunglasses will protect your eyes.

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My contacts block most UV already, but cool, I’ll check some glasses stores. I looked at a few on Maps and they didn’t seem to have sunglasses, but I’ll look again

I don’t suppose there are any major brands that would have their own shops and not be crazy expensive?

Some if not many of the chain-stores for prescription glasses offer those high-end expensive brand names. But it’ll cost you a lot more, maybe double those #s above.
Plus, with the prescription stores, you can choose the color of the sunglasses (I remember at least 10-12 different colors) as well as how dark or light you want the shades to be. Honestly, after buying prescription glasses in these stores in both Taipei and Kaohsiung, they really are inexpensive for what you want.

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Well, it’s not a decent selection, but I needed yet another pair of glasses while paying huge medical bills, and didn’t want to drop $3k+ on new frames (plus, they didn’t have any larger, aviator-style frames, as they’re not in fashion now) so the eyewear staff at Costco pointed me to a package of sunglasses (with UV protection, nice and dark) on the shelf in the pharmacy area priced about $399, they put the new prescription lenses (very dark tint with UV protection btw) in those, and they’ve held up great. What each person thinks is ‘crap’ is very subjective, and you might sniff at the price, but there’s nothing wrong with these in their original sunglasses form; they’ve been quite durable, and have actually held up better than the previous pair of $3k+ titanium frames I got there.

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the frame was 399 ? did you oay extra for the prescription lenses? how does it work exactly if you need prescription lenses in Costco sunglasses ?

The sunglasses were I think Kirkland brand, non-prescrip, in an oversized box. I was surprised that the staff said they could change the lenses to prescription ones, as I imagined that frames which can have new or custom lenses put in were constructed differently, e.g. with a screw to open them to insert the lens). To get a prescrip at Costco you can walk in with a prescrip from an opthamologist at a hospital etc., but usually people just look on the shelves in the eyewear dept. and pick frames they like (you can also ask for help finding the cheapest ones, as they carry a lot of overpriced fashion names as well as e.g. Kirkland, and the cheaper ones may not be the most visible, probably by design), then you sit for a free exam at Costco, which takes 15-30 min., and then sit down with them to go through lens options (material, country of origin, UV etc. coatings, etc., typically all requiring Chinese fluency like at most shops unless you get lucky and get a staff member with good English). The prescrip lenses and frames each have their own price. The lens price depends on your prescription plus all the options you choose from, and together with fashion frames, can add up to a lot (whether at a local eyewear shop or Costco). One of the options is tinting, and they can do auto-changing tints if you have less severe correction needed (in which case you can use glass lenses, the only ones that change tint in the sun). If you have thick lenses due to worse eyes, you’ll want polycarb lenses, which are lightweight, then there’s no auto-tinting AFAIK, but you can get one pair in clear, or clear with light shading at the top, and one in dark for the beach and driving, which is what I do.

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Thank you,
so to summarize: you pay seperately for the lenses (anti sun+correction) and 399 for the kirkland frames, and they switched the lenses for you?

Jins and Owndays have magnetic sun glass “clip-ons” that attach to your regular glasses frame.
Price is around 3K for regular glasses+sun glass clip on.

You’re better off looking online. Especially if you know what type you want. You might find them a fraction of the price. Even back home. And then posted to you.

Yup. Had to go through regular checkout to pay for the sunglasses then return to the optometry area to bring them the paid-for frames.

Yeah, those are new, or at least new since when I last bought glasses (a few years ago) and this summer. My wife bought a pair of those. Look nice. They are better than the old “clip-ons” that clipped over the bridge of the frame. The problem is that the old style would clip on the glass, even if it has rubber-end, can most times smudge up permanently that area where it’s clipped to the glasses.
So, the new magnetic clip-ons are a great improvement for those that just want to use normal glasses and then put the clip-ons for driving or exercising outside.

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Yes there are.
I think there are not much material limitation when it comes to photochromic lenses.