ZEISS Vision Care
Company Information
Here you will find all the information prepared for your reporting on the history, products and structure of ZEISS Vision Care. The Company Portrayal explains the organization and provides insights into the company's portfolio. The latest innovations show the most recent products we have developed. You can also get a glimpse of the history and learn which pioneers have shaped the eyeglass industry. The milestones provide a visual account of the company's historical development.
Leading the Eyeglass Industry for More Than 110 Years
Since 1912 ZEISS has addressed the challenge of providing its customers with an optimal visual experience. Our daily work strongly emphasizes the wishes and needs of our customers because every eye is as individual as a fingerprint and individual demands for better vision require individualized solutions.
The ZEISS Vision Care strategic business unit is allocated to the ZEISS Consumer Markets segment. It develops and produces exceptional technological instruments and offerings for the entire eyeglass value chain. This includes the development, production and distribution of high-quality eyeglass lenses, diagnostic instruments and services. Innovations like ZEISS DriveSafe lenses and the ZEISS SmartLife portfolio, instruments and platforms such as the ZEISS i.Profiler plus, ZEISS VISUFIT 1000, and apps like "My Vision Profile" have received multiple awards for their design, user-friendliness and technological excellence.
Awards
Thanks to our innovative lens solutions and optometric instruments that meet the needs of eye care professionals and spectacle wearers, ZEISS regularly receives awards from the professional community, the optical industry, and marketing experts – whether for design and user experience or technologies and sales concepts. Here is a selected overview.
Milestones in the Company History
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2023 – ZEISS VISUCORE 500
With ZEISS VISUCORE 500 a space-saving, high-precision system is presented that combines objective and subjective refraction. Thanks to its sophisticated technology ZEISS VISUCORE 500 is easy to operate and can deliver precise data in less than five minutes.
2023 – ZEISS Myopia Management
ZEISS combines more than ten years of extensive experience with progressive and high myopia in Asia with scientifically based findings to offer effective, specific myopia management solutions. Since April 2023 ZEISS Myopia Management is also available in Europe, including ZEISS MyoCare and ZEISS MyoCare S lenses.
2022 – ZEISS SmartLife Young & ZEISS SmartLife Individual 3
ZEISS expands its premium portfolio ZEISS SmartLife due to scientific findings on the visual behavior and visual needs of different age groups. It now includes ZEISS SmartLife Young lenses specially designed to meet the needs of children and teenagers and ZEISS SmartLife Individual 3 with the highest level of personalization available in a ZEISS lens.
2022 – ZEISS PhotoFusion X
With ZEISS PhotoFusion X, ZEISS launches the next generation of photochromic lenses. Compared to the previous generation of ZEISS photochromic lenses, the revolutionary design darkens up to 60% faster and fades back to clear up to 80% faster while providing a new level of integrated blue light and UV protection.
2022 – ZEISS ClearView
ZEISS ClearView single vision lenses represent a milestone in optics and aesthetics of stock lenses. In a lens that is 16% thinner and 49% flatter than conventional standard single vision lenses, they offer outstanding visual acuity.
2021 – ZEISS BlueGuard
With ZEISS BlueGuard, a new generation of blue light blocking lenses is introduced to the market addressing the current technology and media use. The blue light blocking properties are incorporated into the lens material itself. As a result, ZEISS BlueGuard Lenses provide excellent lens clarity and block up to 40 percent of potentially harmful and irritating blue light.
2019 – ZEISS SmartLife
Introduction of ZEISS SmartLife – a complete premium portfolio of eyeglass lenses for all consumers no matter their age. The ZEISS SmartLife lens design factors in our modern connected and on-the-move lifestyle, dynamic visual behavior, individual visual needs, and age.
2018 – ZEISS UVProtect
Thanks to UVProtect, ZEISS is the world’s first manufacturer to offer sunglass-level UV protection up to 400 nm for all clear plastic lenses.
2018 – ZEISS VISUFIT 1000
ZEISS VISUFIT 1000 is a new platform for determination of 3D centration data in just a few clicks. Its 9 cameras and 45 points mean a 180-degree facial avatar can be generated for the wearer.
2017 – ZEISS EnergizeMe
Global launch of the ZEISS EnergizeMe lenses for contact lens wearers.
"My Vision Profile" by ZEISS – the app for consumers offers an initial test for visual requirements and is a great way to get to know the ZEISS Vision Analysis at the optician’s – its design was honored with the Red Dot Award.
Launch of ZEISS VISUSTORE, an easy, simple and fast digital ordering platform.
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2015 – ZEISS progressive lenses
ZEISS progressive lenses are refreshed in four categories – perfectly adapted to the eyes and the digital world, to frames and switches to new frames, to a wearer’s facial anatomy and adjustment to their personal lifestyle.
2015 – i.Com mobile
ZEISS offers i.Com mobile, a new, tablet-based system for controlling measuring instruments, centrally collecting data and personal consultations – the system was honored with the Red Dot Award.
2015 – ZEISS DuraVision
ZEISS has expanded its ZEISS DuraVision coating portfolio to include ZEISS DuraVision Silver and ZEISS DuraVision BlueProtect.
2015 – ZEISS DriveSafe
Global launch of the ZEISS DriveSafe lenses; designed to maximize safety and comfort for glasses wearers while driving and offer maximum safety and comfort even when worn all day long.
2013 – New Brand Image
ZEISS Vision Care operates around the globe with a new brand image focused sharply on the power of the ZEISS brand; the emphasis is on the special and fascinating moments that customers experience with ZEISS products.
2012 – ZEISS PhotoFusion®
With PhotoFusion®, ZEISS introduces the fastest self-tinting lenses on the market.
With technology for determining the maximum intermediate distance (M.I.D.) developed by the company, a ZEISS lens can be adapted with millimeter accuracy to the visual distance required by each individual user.
DuraVision Platinum is ZEISS’s hardest coating yet.
2011 – The first ZEISS Experience Vision Center
The first ZEISS Experience Vision Center opens in Berlin with the aim of offering a brand-new shopping experience in the 21st century. All the relevant aspects of the customer experience are taken into account: shop fitting, marketing material, sales area, instruments for vision analysis, refraction and centration, as well as cutting-edge ZEISS lens solutions – all with an innovative design.
2010 – Myopia Management for Asian children
Restructuring of the company financing: Carl Zeiss AG takes over 100 percent of the voting rights in Carl Zeiss Vision, which is integrated as ZEISS Vision Care into the Carl Zeiss Group.
MyoVision™ from ZEISS is an eyeglass lens specially developed for Asian children. Thanks to Peripheral Vision Management Technology™, this lens significantly reduces the progression of myopia and, consequently, the risk of severely limited vision later on. About half of all children between the ages of 11 and 13 living in cities and urban areas of Asia suffer from myopia – and the trend is accelerating.
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2009 – ZEISS Experience
ZEISS Experience is presented as a modular retail concept with three key elements: ZEISS analysis, marketing and consulting tools as well as a special shop design.
2007 – i.Scription®
Through wavefront measurement, i.Scription® allows the wearer's individual eye profile to be factored into the lens calculation. This technology considerably improves the correction of visual defects, particularly for night vision.
2000 – 2006
2006 – ZEISS Gradal Individual® FrameFit®
Introduction of Gradal Individual® FrameFit®, the first progressive lens that adapts to all frames.2005 – ZEISS Vision Care & SOLA International
Merger of the ZEISS Vision Care division and the US eyeglass lens manufacturer SOLA International.2000 – First individualized progressive lens
ZEISS presents its first individualized progressive lens in the form of Gradal Individual®. In addition to offering a customized Rx, personal parameters of the wearer are now factored into the calculation of the progressive surface.
1995 – Acquisition of American Optical
Acquisition of American Optical (founded in 1869) by SOLA International.
1991 – ZEISS Clarlet SL
World's first mid-index plastic eyeglass lens: Clarlet SL by ZEISS. Today, a refractive index of up to 1.74 allows lenses that are up to 40 percent thinner and therefore lighter than traditional indices.
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1987 – ZEISS Clarlet Gradal HS
First plastic lens from ZEISS under the brand name Clarlet Gradal HS.
1983 – ZEISS Gradal HS
Successful breakthrough into the progressive lens sector with Gradal HS. Gradal enables the same visual conditions for the two eyes regardless of the direction of view, offering considerably better binocular vision than previous progressive lenses.
1970 – ZEISS Gradal 1
Umbramatic lenses launched; Carl Zeiss caters to the segment of self-tinting lenses for the first time.
The first progressive lenses are introduced to the market; Gradal 1.
From 1960 – Introduction of plastic lenses
Introduction of plastic lenses, also by Scientific Optical Laboratories of Australia (SOLA), which was merged with Carl Zeiss Vision Care to form Carl Zeiss Vision in 2005.
1959 – First anti-reflective coating
First anti-reflective coating, with a patent awarded to Carl Zeiss in 1935.
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1945 – Division of Carl Zeiss in Jena and Carl Zeiss in Oberkochen
Division of Carl Zeiss in Jena (East Germany) and Carl Zeiss in Oberkochen (West Germany). Re-establishment of ophthalmology in Oberkochen.
1932 – ZEISS PERIVIST frames
Introduction of PERIVIST frames which enable an anatomically optimal, secure position of the lenses in front of the eyes and a customized fitting.
1924 – ZEISS UMBRAL lens
Launch of the sun protection lens UMBRAL; the first optical sunglass lens to feature a uniform tint and defined transmittance.
1914 – Start of bifocal lenses production
Production of bifocal lenses begins.
1 April 1912
ZEISS launches Punktal, the market’s first precision eyeglass lens, as well as the first-ever slit lamp.
1911 – Nobel Prize (Medicine) for Moritz von Rohr and Allvar Gullstrand
ZEISS Development Head Moritz von Rohr and Swedish ophthalmologist Allvar Gullstrand received the Nobel Prize (Medicine) for their work on the eye’s physiology.
Status: August 2024