Ryan Mitchell, founder of The Daylight Frame

I'd been running the two-pairs system for about six years.

Glasses on my face, sunnies in the centre console. Swap getting in the car, swap getting out. Which sounds manageable until you're doing it eight times a day with a coffee in one hand, and the sunnies end up on the dash where they cook, or on the seat where you sit on them.

So when my optometrist brought up transitions, I didn't need selling. Darken outside, clear inside, one pair. A hundred and forty on top. I said yes before she finished explaining.

First proper sunny drive, I'm heading west about half five, sun sitting exactly where the visor doesn't reach.

And I'm squinting.

I reached up and touched the lenses to check I'd grabbed the right glasses. I had. They were just completely clear.

The bit nobody explains

Photochromic lenses darken in response to UV light. Not brightness UV specifically.

Modern windscreens are built to block UV. It's a safety feature, and a good one. It's also the reason your lenses sit there doing nothing while you drive into a sunset.

The two things have never been compatible. Your transitions aren't faulty and you didn't get a bad batch. They will not tint in a car, on the brightest day of the year, ever.

I've since read plenty of opticians online saying they tell customers this upfront. Some clearly do. Mine didn't, and going by how often this comes up, a lot of people find out the same way I did.

The two fixes I was offered

Relens to XTRActive - around $200. These darken a little behind glass. Not fully. And they hold a permanent faint tint indoors, which people either stop noticing or never do.

Prescription sunglasses - $300 and up. Works properly, in fairness. But you're now carrying two pairs in a case again, which is the exact system I'd paid $140 to escape. And when your script changes, you buy them twice.

Both of those cost more than the original mistake. That's what bothered me.

So we made this instead

The obvious answer is a pair of sunglasses that go over the glasses you already own. That product has existed for years. The problem is what it looks like.

I'm not going to pretend I didn't have the same reaction you probably did. Every fit-over I'd seen was an enormous wraparound thing the kind handed out after cataract surgery. I'd rather squint.

So the brief was narrow: make a pair that solves the problem without announcing that you have one.

Slimmer profile. Frame edges that sit close instead of bulging. Polarised lenses, because glare off a wet road or a windscreen is the actual thing you're fighting. Light enough that you're not feeling two frames stacked on your nose.

They go on over your glasses in about a second and come off just as fast. No case ritual. No second prescription. No relensing when your eyes change.

Mine live in the glovebox.

Grab your pair here 👉 The Daylight Shades