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(ED MAKSVYTIS/GLOBE STAFF) |
For lost specs, a way home
Newton couple offer kit to assist, reward finders
Phyllis Giller didn't even realize she'd lost her prescription sunglasses until her cellphone starting ringing with news that someone had found them at Walden Pond, where she'd gone swimming earlier that day.
The call came from Eyeglass Rescue, a Newton firm that helps reunite people and their misplaced glasses -- a modern antidote for forgetfulness. The company sells a tiny plastic tube of a material that shrinks to fit onto eyeglasses, nearly invisible behind the ear. The tube includes an identification code, toll-free number, and the promise of a reward.
Eyeglass owners who worry about their tendency to misplace things can register their pair with the company's database. If the glasses turn up lost, the person who finds them can call Eyeglass Rescue and coordinate a way to return the spectacles.
Turns out there are more scatterbrained eyeglass owners than you'd think: The company, founded by a Newton business consultant after he lost two pairs of $400 glasses within six months, has recovered more than 4,000 pairs over the past several years.
"I bought Eyeglass Rescue for my dad but it was an afterthought for myself because I've never lost my glasses," said Giller, who arranged to pick up her glasses at the Walden Pond entrance after coordinating with the finder. "Now I think it's ingenious and it saved me $150."
The kit can help consumers reverse what can turn into a wallet-draining mistake. An average pair of eyeglasses costs about $225, according to VisionWatch, and can easily top $400 with designer frames and increasingly popular add-ons, including progressive and transition lenses and antireflective coating. Over the past year, Americans spent about $445 million replacing nearly 2 million pairs of lost eyeglasses, according to VisionWatch, a joint research venture between the Vision Council of America and Jobson Medical Information. It was the first time the group surveyed this question.
"Walgreens is always looking for the latest innovations to address everyday problems," said spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce. "We think this service touches on a need that any eyeglass wearer could relate to. We believe the service will have strong appeal to a large portion of our customer base."
Businesses have tried, without much success, to help recover lost spectacles. But it hasn't been a priority for companies that make the glasses, for obvious reasons.
"Manufacturers don't have much of a vested interest. Most manufacturers like people to lose their glasses because then people have to replace them and it means more sales for them," said Steve Kodey, director of industry research at Vision Council of America, a trade organization for the eyewear and sunglasses industry.
Peter Jones, 57, worked for nearly a year developing Eyeglass Rescue at his kitchen table and home office in Newton. Originally, he tried making the product using elastic bands, but switched materials after a friend suggested using shrinkable tubing so the ID code would stay on permanently.
After he perfected the identification sleeve -- it needs to be slipped on the eyeglasses and placed into a cup of boiled hot water for it to shrink properly -- he and his wife, Harriet Diamond, began testing whether the idea would work. So the couple bought some inexpensive reading glasses and began deliberately leaving them at the mall, in doctor's offices, and at the hospital to see if people would find the tag and report the missing glasses to the toll-free number listed.
If good will isn't enough motivation, Eyeglass Rescue also rewards finders with $20 gift certificates to a national chain restaurant or department store and a free Eyeglass Rescue kit. To this day, Diamond, who now runs the company, leaves glasses about once a week in various places. At the Wrentham Village Premium Outlets earlier this summer, where Diamond "lost" the same pair of glasses at two stores, each was reported missing within minutes.
Eyeglass Rescue, which has 15 employees, would not disclose sales, but said it expected revenue to triple this year as it enters the chain drugstore market and develops a product for hospitals.
For Amy Broder, a Newton teacher, Eyeglass Rescue is like an insurance policy for forgetfulness.
She left her $200 prescription sunglasses at a restaurant this summer and retrieved them after the staff called Eyeglass Rescue. "People don't think they'll lose them," she said. "But you're busy. You don't remember."
Jenn Abelson can be reached at abelson@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
