Online Vision Test
Many of our patients look to do a free online eye test to assess their vision. Even though online eye testing may not be the best there are a few options for you. These online eye tests have to be standardized because of the size of your screen, font, color contrast, and even brightness, all play a role in assessing your vision. When it comes to an online eye testing chart these things are difficult to standardize because of changes at the user end. Because this is not offered in all the available online tests there is no one best online vision test.
Many offer online eye testing but we doubt the authenticity of all of them. We have done our own research and found a few sites and give you some basic forms of online tests.
1) The first is from Essilor. The tests they have provided are basic for the reasons we have mentioned above.
2) The second is from Zeiss and this site does have some form of calibration to enable you to get an accurate result.
Online Colour Vision Testing
Here too we did some online research but no one has color vision testing with calibration. For online color vision testing, calibration of your own computer is the most important thing. we have found that the online chart for eye testing for color vision doesn’t have a system in place to calibrate your computer. We thus would recommend you to not try this at home/office but visit an ophthalmologist for the same.
ASTIGMATISM TEST ONLINE
Astigmatism is a condition where one has to wear glasses to see clearly. These glasses would mainly be for far but can be for far and near also. There are some eye tests online for this too. Here is one eye test online.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ONLINE EYESIGHT TEST AND A DOCTORS CLINIC?
When you visit a doctors clinic they would check for the following
- Vision
- Refraction
- Presbyopic correction ( Near glasses prescription)
- Squint assessment
- Slit Lamp Examination
- Eye pressure examination to rule out Glaucoma
- Retina examination to rule out any retinal diseases like Diabetic eye disease or macular degeneration.
- Optic nerve examination to again rule our Glaucoma or optic nerve disease.
In an online eye test, the following is checked
- Vision
So you can clearly see that online eye testing or an online eye testing chart don’t really give you the answers that you are looking for. In fact, they may give you a false sense of security and it is extremely important to get a routine eye examination done.
Are online eye tests accurate ?
Ophthalmology is a very technology dependant specialty. Thus, ophthalmologists the world over are fairly technology savvy. There are also significant advances in technology being used in ophthalmology to diagnose certain eye diseases like diabetic retinopathy. As time goes by we are sure that usage of this technology will only increase.
That being said at the current time, the accuracy of these online eye testing sites is really doubtful. As mentioned in earlier there is a lot of standardization that goes into vision testing in a doctor's clinic. Very few online sites actually focus on the calibration of your computer screen to enable this standardization.
What these online eye tests currently do is give you a rough idea about your vision and if you should go see an ophthalmologist and that too to a small extent. They do not detect other serious eye conditions and you may be having.