Warby Parker’s Prescription Check app lets you skip the eye doctor

Warby Parker wants to get you the right prescription glasses without forcing you to get an in-person eye test. It’s now testing its new Prescription Test app that uses your phone and computer in tandem to adminster a 20-minute series of eye tests, which are then reviewed by a doctor who makes the final call on your prescription. This could let Warby Parker sell people prescription glasses on impulse rather than hoping customers come back once they get their prescription the old fashioned way.

For now, Warby Parker says only people between the ages of 18 and 40 in California, Florida, New York, and Virginia who already have Warby Parker glasses are eligible for the test. But eventually it could roll it out more widely to let new customers from a wider range of places get their prescription checked.

The test sees users stand back from their computer screen that displays the vision tests while reading instructions off the phone they’re holding. The phone’s camera can measure a credit card placed in the corner of the computer screen to determine the distance and screensize so the tests are configured properly.

Prescription Check’s technology works extremely similarly to startup Opternative, which has been doing online eye tests since 2014. A source says that Warby Parker has been working on the Prescription Check idea for a long time and considered both building and buying the necessary technology. Now Warby Parker appears to have built it on its own.

With Warby Parker already focused on online sales, the Prescription Check app and technology could give it another edge over retail stores.