New Spy Lens Designed To Elevate Mood

The “secret” behind Spy’s new Happy Lens mood enhancing technology reportedly has something to do with “long-wave blue light.” The idea is that blue light affects our bodies and can increase alertness and elevate the mood. (If you want to read one of the studies Spectral Quality of Light Modulates Emotional Brain Responses in Humans published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America click the link).

Whether we believe it or not, Spy CEO Michael Marckx is, not surprisingly, backing the technology pretty hard.

“This is the most exciting product innovation we’ve ever created,” Marckx said. “Our Happy Lens™ applies advanced technology to the eyewear world and strikes a powerful balance in sunglasses—one that can be seen and felt, enhancing experience in manifold and novel ways. It’s the single most important product breakthrough I have ever worked on.”

The new Happy Lenses will officially debut in the Spy’s 2013 line in styles like the Crosstown Collection, Fade to Black, and the high performance cycling glasses. We’re currently testing the Happy Lens in the new Discord frame (pictured above). We’ll let you know if we notice anything “happy” about them. For the official word from Spy, follow the jump.SPY Happy Lens™ Takes Lens Technology to a Higher State of Consciousness

CARLSBAD, Calif.—SPY Inc. (OTCBB: XSPY) today unveiled new lens technology that not only improves vision and performance, but is also designed to invigorate mind and mood alike.

The SPY Happy Lens™ technology was born of SPY’s desire to help improve concentration, refresh and improve the quality of everyday experience—making people “happier”—while at the same time providing the protection, optical clarity and comfort for which the Southern California-based eyewear brand is renowned.

The SPY Happy Lens™ boasts an innovative, patent-pending lens technology formula that fuses years of optics design experience with contemporary research into human color preference. Not only does the SPY Happy Lens™ provide 100 percent UV protection, block more than 99 percent of glare, provide remarkable contrast, depth perception and color enhancement, it is also designed to “harmonize” with the body’s physiological preference for a specific color transmission, optimized through the important wavelengths between 450 and 500 nanometers, where the “uplifting” effects of blue (“happy”) light are most prevalent.

Making its debut in the spring of 2013, the SPY Happy Lens™ will be available across a wide array of styles, including vintage-inspired Crosstown Collection, Fade to Black Collection and high-performance cycling models.

“This is the most exciting product innovation we’ve ever created,” said SPY President and CEO Michael Marckx. “Our Happy Lens™ applies advanced technology to the eyewear world and strikes a powerful balance in sunglasses—one that can be seen and felt, enhancing experience in manifold and novel ways. It’s the single most important product breakthrough I have ever worked on.”

Long-wave blue light is the part of the spectrum that studies suggest promotes balance in the body, which most traditional lenses block to a large extent. More specifically, exposure to sunlight—especially long wave blue light—has been stated to foster positive physiological changes; raising mood and alertness. Furthermore, studies behind light therapy suggest that it harnesses blue light to regulate hormones that may be related to certain emotional conditions. This positive physiological “uplift” from long wave blue light exposure became the inspiration for the SPY Happy Lens™ technology.

The SPY Happy Lens™ is designed to achieve an unparalleled balance of experiential and functional features and benefits that will complement the style, quality, comfort, durability, and exceptional fit of SPY frames, along with design features that have set the brand apart, like Scoop™ Airflow Technology, ARC™ (Accurate Radius Curvature) Prismatic Lenses and Trident Polarized Lenses.