Gunnar CES brief — Excellent tech and slick frames for 2025

We’re big fans of Gunnar, and not just because they’re stylish.  They continue to push the technology that makes these a must-have for anyone who spends any time in front of a screen, and they do so with cool partnerships like Fallout, Toki-Doki, Blizzard, Call of Duty, and much more.  We checked out their newest and upcoming goodies at CES, and we’re happy to report that it’s far more than just cool new frames.

The first thing the team was eager to showcase is their new Clear Pro lens.  This innovation finally achieves what graphic artists and colorists have been looking for since Gunnar started shipping glasses – completely clear lenses.  These Clear Pro lenses have been shipping in a select few frames, complete with all of the bells and whistles available with their other more advanced varieties such as their amber tint, but as of right now, you can order them with your prescription as well.

Keeping with the clear lenses, Gunnar also showed off the advancements in their mineral glass collection, including a new line called the “Purity Collection”.  These mineral glass lenses are different than the norm, offering no refraction, no rainbow effects, and no image distortion.  The first in that collection, the Tioga, is a clear round lens housed in a round frame made of acetate and reclaimed wood.  It’ll also feature German spring hinges that are beyond flexible, and all while retaining the line’s signature light weight.  These will be available in both Amber and Clear Pro mineral glass in May of 2025, and coming in around $250.

Shifting gears to some cool new tech for the line we saw the Sun-Shift and the Viscer.  The Sun-Shift is another collaboration with Activision and Call of Duty Ghost.  These are an amber tint, but they don’t stay that way.  Using a chemical reaction, they’ll tint to amber while in sunlight inside of about 15 seconds.  Heading inside they’ll slowly transform back to clear in about 15 minutes, making them a great pair of all-day glasses.

The Viscer is what can only be called a concept lens.  With more in common with a high-end snowboarder lens, the glasses feature a wide uninterrupted toric lens.  The advantage of a wide and uninterrupted lens is that it keeps your eyes from drying out, restricting air from ingressing to dry your eyes.  Like other Gunnars, these are available with all of the lens advancements and colors, as well as prescription lenses.  The team envisions these as attractive for the e-sports crowd, and we’ll see both of them hit in March.

Back to a more traditional lens, we took a look back at the 2024 launch of the Cupertino.  The Cupertino featured a magnetic lens system that allowed you to use different tints by popping them out to change throughout the day based on needs.  They found that a lot of folks would lose one lens or another, so clearly there was a need to find a solution.  Wow, they sure did.

The Venture is EASILY the most exciting lens advancement Gunnar had to showcase at CES, topping my most-anticipated list by a wide margin.  The Ventures use a cutting edge electrochromic lens technology that seamlessly and dynamically changes the color.  Simply tap the temple and it adjusts the lens tint.  Sun clear, amber, amber max, and everything in between are achieved by passing a small charge through the lens, activating the chemical reaction to shift to the next color, not unlike the privacy screens you see in ultra-high-end office buildings.  This means you can have it tinted dark in your car, walk into the office and with a tap or two, have a completely clear set of glasses ready to fend off blue light from your monitor.  These take about two hours to charge, but shouldn’t need to be recharged for months and hundreds of transitions as the power usage is miniscule.  These will ship in the latter half of 2025 for roughly $250 and that price is a STEAL.

It should come as no surprise that the Gunnar team are teaming up with a bunch of great properties, including a few new ones.  We’ll see their partnership with Activision/Blizzard continue with new glasses for World of Warcraft, Diablo IV, Overwatch 2, and the aforementioned Call of Duty titles.  We’ll also see new frames celebrating Mozzarella, Digital Princess, Crystal Kingdom, Tokidoki, and the second season of Fallout!  It was far from their only surprise.

One of the bits of feedback that Gunnar had received was that most of their glasses are “guy glasses”.  To that end, they’ve also introduced some new feminine frame types, kicking things off with the Krista collection.  This collection will feature four lines – the Erika (Feb) with its all-metal construction and cat eye look, the Eileen’s (April) straight and sleek lines, the Ingrid (April) featuring a rounded form-fitting look, and the Sophia (April) with rounded lenses, temple hinges, a rose gold temple frame. These are set to hit in April, and given my wife’s love for rose gold, I suspect she’ll be getting our hands on them.  At $65 they’re also remarkably affordable.

The team closed out their presentation with a handful of upcoming lines that I was surprised to see.  The other complaint that folks had was that the Gunnars are a bit tight for the bigger heads out there.  To that end, they’re launching the Pinnacle – a king-sized line that’ll be comfortable for those with a bit more meat on the skull, and available in June.

The Quantum collection is inspired by Tony Stark’s signature glasses in The Avengers, with a gold temple and side shields, offering a lot of the same air-shielding tech as some of their other glasses.

The last two, the Freemont and Campbell (part of their Luma Collection) are a frame with an acetate marbled side, an all metal construction, and a small vent on each outer edge.  These are nice understated glasses to let you get all of the advancements of a pair of Gunnars but with a very highly blendable look.

The team had a very solid lineup last year, and this year looks like it’ll be even stronger.  With excellent IP tie-ins, combined with a LOT of brand new tech, this could be Gunnar’s strongest year yet.  Drop in at CES to see everything new, including those awesome Venture lines, and then stay right here for all our hands-on coverage as these lenses and frames hit the streets.

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