In-Depth with Mike Sullivan: High-Performance Lenses Explained by Shamir Rep Kate Lewis

Shamir High-Performance Lenses: Why Bay Eye Center Trusts Them.

At Bay Eye Center, we know that no two patients live the same lifestyle — and no two sets of eyes are alike. That’s why all of our Bay Eye Center locations partner with Shamir, the leader in high-performance, fully customizable lenses designed to match every individual’s needs.

In this exclusive conversation, long-time patient Mike Sullivan sits down with Shamir representative Kate Lewis to explore how these lenses go beyond standard vision correction. From digital devices to outdoor adventures and nighttime driving, Shamir designs their lenses using AI so each person gets the exact pair they need for clarity, comfort, and performance in every part of life. Discover why Bay Eye Center trusts Shamir to deliver sharper vision, greater comfort, and personalized solutions for every lifestyle.

TRANSCRIPT:

(closed captions are available on the video)

Mike Sullivan: Joining me now is Kate Lewis, and Kate works very closely with all of our Bay Eye Center offices. She works for a company called Shamir and if you wear glasses, there is a very good chance you are rocking Shamir lenses. Because all of our Bay Eye Center offices

carry Shamir products and lenses. So Kate, first of all, thank you so much for sharing your time and expertise with us today.

Kate Lewis: Thank you, thank you for having me.

Mike Sullivan: It is my pleasure. We're gonna keep this short and simple. The goal of this quick convo is to simply educate all of us, including myself, on what Shamir is all about and why it's simply the best, the only choice for lenses. So, first question Kate. At Bay Eye Center, we are all about customization. From every eye exam to every pair of contact lenses, every pair of glasses, sunglasses—it's all about providing the best customer service and vision care. So what role specifically does Shamir play in the Bay Eye Center experience.

Kate Lewis: So I started working with Bay Eye, which by the way Bay Eye is my fave! I started working with Bay Eye about four years ago and at that time there was a little bit of a more scattered portfolio in the store locations where they were still using a variety of different lenses. But over the past four years, we've really focused on streamlining the portfolio for the Bay Eye patient so that when they go into a store, whether it's Mansfield or Easton or Hopkinton or wherever they go Duxbury they get that same continuity of care, regardless of which store location they go into. We're trying to offer the most similar portfolio throughout all of those locations where Shamir can have a presence in every aspect of lenses—from everyday wear from a regular progressive, to task specific computer pairs and things that you might use at your desk, to anti-fatigues and even a single vision lens option. So you have a variety of lenses, all customizable to offer your patient the widest portfolio possible under one brand umbrella so that all of the training and the help that these associates are getting on the brand can be used to keep that continuity of care similar at all locations. And the service is great and of a very high expectation and standard at all locations.

Mike Sullivan: Wow very good, thank you for sharing that. And what I hear from that too is for the patient equals convenience.

Kate Lewis: Absolutely.

Mike Sullivan: So I was doing some research for our conversation today and I learned that Shamir is known, and you mentioned this, Shamir is known for its custom high-performance progressive lenses specifically. So for anyone who might not know what progressive lenses are, can you please tell us what they are, and more importantly, why Shamir is the only choice when it comes to progressive lenses?

Kate Lewis: Sure. So progressive lenses, unlike a single vision lens, has multiple different focal lengths within the lens. So what that means is that instead of the lens being all for close up, or all for far away for let's say driving, or to see the chalkboard at school, the lens has multiple areas in it for distance—for computer, for maybe your digital device, for reading, for close up. Many of us that have worn progressive lenses know that there can be a little bit of a struggle around going from that single vision lens into a progressive because you're changing your life around right. You're going from looking out the lens and not having to really pay attention to how you're using the lens, to being in what we call a corridor, and having to use that lens for each specific thing in a different way. So progressive lenses come with a little bit of that kind of that cloud of "oh boy if I'm wearing a progressive, I'm changing my life cause I have to use these lenses a certain way and I don't want to change my life." But with Shamir, we don't want you to change your life. Like you said, like this is about ease, convenience, this is about wearability, this is about putting on a lens and feeling like you're in a single vision lens even though you're in a progressive. We want you to put that lens on and be comfortable and not have to change your life to wear it, but it changes to fit your needs. That that's our overview of why we're focused so heavily on the user experience through Shamir.

Mike Sullivan: Excellent answer. And there is laser point focus with all of this—with how the lenses are made—because I understand Shamir uses AI to create these personalized, progressive lenses.

Kate Lewis: So when we were researching at Shamir, how we wanted to come up with our newest lens design—which our flagship lens is the Autograph Intelligence®—we decided to look into big data research. We took AI technology and incorporated that into how the wearer, the user uses their glasses. So we did a lot of research. We had folks put the glasses on and we were able to map where they use their lenses, what part of the lens they're looking through when they're reading, what part they're using when they're looking through their distance, and what add power the patient is, what they need for their reading at the point that they're using the lens for reading, for distance, so we can tailor the experience for the patient. Hey if you need a little bit more reading, we can give you that. If you need a little bit less, and you need more computer, we can give you that too. So, the cool part about having a company that is selling this technology, this software, is that it's ever changing. So as the patient's needs change, the software can be updated and the technology can be changed and edited and made to fit the needs of what the current environment is, in that you're in, or what the patient needs at that time based on their personal prescription. So there's a really cool factor in all of that technology. We want it to be easy for them, but on the back end of it, there's a lot that goes into making that lens for them.

Mike Sullivan: Talk about precision and customization, my goodness!

Kate Lewis: Absolutely.

Mike Sullivan: So it's not just progressive lenses at Shamir. Kate tell us about the other specialized coatings as well please.

Kate Lewis: Shamir offers anti-reflective coatings in three different aspects. There's a more basic style: Shamir Basic. There's Shamir

Glacier PLUS™ and there's Shamir Glacier Expression™. The Expression is the newest edition. At Bay Eye you're gonna be able to use a variety of different coatings that fits your needs and when they, the experts, sit down and the opticians have those conversations with you about what lens and what coating they recommend, they'll tell you "hey, you're using the computer more, you're driving at night, we're gonna recommend the Expression. Or we're, you know, what we're gonna offer, this Glacier PLUS™ because you're saying X, Y, and Z." So we've got a multitude of options for every patient at all different price points so that you get exactly what you need when you're at Bay Eye. I personally am wearing the Expression. My son is wearing the Expression. I've never been more impressed with an anti-reflective coating as I have until I saw that Expression come out. We created it during Covid to help folks that were on digital devices—zooming, Face-timing—because we were all working from home right. And finding alternative means with a lot of these data devices connecting us to our friends, family, workers, and we created the anti-reflective so that when we're on these calls or we're zooming, folks can see our eyes through our lenses instead of a whole bunch of dots and glare. Which if even if you're talking to your child or a grandparent or a family member or friend on Facetime, you want them to be able to see you. The our eyes are like the window to our expression and so that's why I think certain coatings are just so important. And Bay Eye offers all of those options for you to give the best experience to you possible with your lenses.

Mike Sullivan: Excellent. And Kate, something else that caught my attention while preparing for our conversation today, but something my mother and mother-in-law always mention to me, they can't see when they drive at night.

Kate Lewis: At night, yeah.

Mike Sullivan: Can you tell us how Shamir is trying to help people who can't see well while they're driving at night?

Kate Lewis: Yeah, we know this is a big market. We have folks—90% of the people we meet in our eye exams are gonna tell you one thing—and we have determined it is the same comment through all of these exams. "Hey how do you see at night? Awful! I can't see at night." And we knew that this was something that was untapped, that people had not been able to offer a patient. And so about a year ago, we launched the Driver Intelligence™ Lens. This lens comes in a sun and a moon—a sunglass and a clear pair—so we can help you during the day in a polarized lens, or we can help you at night for nighttime driving. It comes in single vision and progressive options. So for your mother, mother-in-law you've got an option. For the first time teenager in high school that's wearing just lenses at night to drive when they're going back and forth from sports and things like that. We've got single vision options as well. But really, we've just decided that we've got to give attention to where we know there's folks in need of help. And that's what Shamir's overall objective is: we want you to have something that helps your life, that makes life easier, that makes it better for you—convenient, comfortable—and the nighttime driving lenses paired with that Expression anti-reflective I was speaking about is an amazing option for folks that have not been able to drive at night, that fear their safety, traffic lights are a little wonky, the street lines are a little bit nerve wracking, they're scared to park or if it's raining it's really scary. So these lenses are designed to help folks so that they can feel safer on the road, feel better about getting from point A to point Z, and not having to feel that panic when they go out at night, to drive in the rain or in dark conditions, or when we have low light conditions.

Mike Sullivan: I'm glad you mentioned the fear and safety because that's really what it boils down to for my mother and mother-in-law. They don't want to drive when it's raining right at night.

Kate Lewis: Absolutely, they're finding a way to, to pivot and customize that experience and make people feel safe, which is great.

Mike Sullivan: Absolutely. I heard you mention sunglasses in your answer there. You've gone in depth on eyeglasses. Shamir is involved in sunglasses as well?

Kate Lewis: Oh yeah. The design that we sell or carry is to be used with any lens you want. That means you can use a color, a polarized lens, it can be for a progressive, a single vision, sunnies, anything you want. So yes, you can absolutely use the intelligence for your sunglasses. You can use single vision, we provide multiple different colors, the lab can offer all sorts of fun coatings, mirror coatings, and we have a beautiful antireflective Glacier SUN™ that can go on your sunglasses so that the lenses that you see, see on the shelf when you go to pick out your frame look the same as when you pick them up the day you go to get them. We want the experience for you at Bay Eye to be consistent from the second you go into that exam to when you pick up your glasses at dispense. You see these beautiful frames on the wall

and we want you to come back and pick up your glasses and be just as impressed with the finished product as when you were there having your exam and picking out your glasses.

Mike Sullivan: Well said Kate. Is there anything else that you'd like Bay Eye Center patients to know about Shamir?

Kate Lewis: So I do want to just share one little story. So I came from a big box sales environment where I worked for 10 years as a licensed optician in Massachusetts, just selling lenses to customers every day, patient facing. Now I'm on the other side of it. But I've been with customers for a really long time and I will say that the reason that I came to Shamir is because in all of the years that I worked at these stores where I was told what to sell because this is the portfolio I was given, I never truly felt like I was able to help the patient tackle all of the needs that they may have.

Mike Sullivan: Yeah.

Kate Lewis: I always felt like I was rigging it to make it work. And when I came to Shamir, I realized that all of these things are available to you as the patient. It's finding the right store that can offer it and Bay Eye offers it, they offer all of it. And that, that says a lot. That says they truly want their patient to see well and feel good and love their glasses and love how they look and feel confident in what they're purchasing. And that says a lot because I want that for the patient as well. And with Shamir, there's no rigging it. There's no making it work. It is customized from the second you, you and that associate, speak about what you need, all the way to the very end—where the reading goes, how much reading you get, how much computer you get, how much where the reading is placed, the corridor, the colors. If it's sunglasses, if it's progressive, what coatings you need, and all of these things that we offer at Bay Eye sets us apart from other stores because they're doing this for you. They're giving you these beautiful options to make sure that you're happy. And I'm really proud to work for Shamir and I'm grateful that they see the value in Shamir as well.

Mike Sullivan: Excellent answer. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, really puts everything in perspective, so yeah, our awesome rep from Shamir, pleasure as always.

Kate Lewis: Thank you so much!

Mike Sullivan: Thanks for sharing your time and expertise with us.

Kate Lewis: Alright, thanks!