Guide · 2026-10-15

Integrated prescription in loupes: how it works

If you use vision correction, sooner or later you'll ask yourself: do loupes go over my glasses, instead of my glasses… or can they carry my prescription inside? This guide explains the third way — integrated prescription — without selling it as mandatory: with its advantages, limits and alternatives.

What it is exactly

In a loupe with integrated prescription, your correction is manufactured inside the optical system: the carrier lens (and the optics where applicable) is cut with your correction, like prescription glasses — but aligned with the magnifying oculars at your interpupillary distance and your angle. Result: a single instrument, with no stacked layers in front of your eyes.

What you gain by integrating it

• Less glass between you and the field: every extra surface adds reflections and

weight; integrating removes a complete layer.

• Real alignment: the correction sits centred on your visual axis together with

the magnifying optics — it's part of the same made-to-measure manufacturing as the working distance.

• Ease of use: you put on a single system and work; no glasses

slipping under a frame.

The honest alternatives

Integration isn't the only way, and sometimes not the best:

• Contact lenses + unprescribed loupe: a flexible, very common solution. If your

prescription changes often, you change lenses and the loupe stays intact.

• Flip-up over your glasses: the flip-up mount lives with your

prescription glasses underneath; we explain it in TTL or flip-up. You pay some weight and field, you gain total independence from the prescription.

What if my prescription changes?

It's THE question, and it deserves a straight answer: an integrated correction is as personal as the rest of the system. A small change may not justify touching anything; a big change means going through technical service to recut or replace the carrier lens — it's not turning a wheel. That's why at the fitting we ask about your prescription's stability: if it changes often, the contact-lens route or a flip-up mount may suit you better. Deciding it with you before manufacturing is exactly that session's job.

How it's requested in practice

In our range, the TTL lines (Galileo, Kepler and the TTLs of Ergo) admit integrated prescription with a supplement you see on the page and in the configurator when ticking “with prescription”. Your prescription doesn't travel through a form: it is validated at the fitting — with your prescription in front and, where appropriate, checked with your optician — before entering manufacturing. In the EL headbands, customisable prescription is pending the manufacturer's tariff and we say so.

In one sentence

Integrating the prescription turns the loupe into YOUR complete instrument — maximum optical cleanliness in exchange for commitment to a stable prescription. If yours moves, there are better paths, and the moment to choose is the fitting, not the cart.