Enchroma's CEO has released a video in response to this series: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iqiKgJV93rucl2w.html **Edit: they turned off the comments. Cowards.

My wife was convinced that these glasses were a magical cure for colorblindness. She was so upset when I tried them on and told her they didn't really do anything for me. She'd seen the reaction videos and expected a miraculous result. I'd love to see these people held accountable for their misrepresentations.

Close to 12 years ago, my wife ordered me a set of Enchroma glasses, complete with my daily prescription. I am Red-Green color blind, have never been able to do the hidden number tests, and constantly mistake certain colors in certain contexts. That last point is key... I CAN see red, green, blue, brown, yellow, orange, purple, etc. I have little to no issue discerning colors on their own. Its only when those colors are next to other colors that things can blend together in my brain. Unexpected issues between Red and Brown, or Green and Grey, or Blue and Purple... there isn't enough contrast at times to distinguish one from the other when the colors are right next to each other. The Enchroma glasses promised to help distinguish those colors from one another. My reaction was certainly not emotionally fueled, but I'd always explained my color blindness to others as a lack of contrast, because that was the easiest thing to explain, and avoid the 'what color is this' mindless loop of questions. The glasses did make certain colors 'pop' for the first time. Green traffic signs on the highway, and orange cones on a soccer field were two that I noticed. The glasses did help me sometimes distinguish between some colors, but they also gave a false boost in contrast in others, while muting other shades entirely. Like you mention in the first video, I figured 'these probably just don't work for MY exact color blindness', and stopped wearing them after a couple days. Mind you... I wanted these to work. These were well over $500 with prescription lenses. Years later, I started my KZfaq channel, and began doing color editing on my videos. I had a couple videos, as you described, where people complained of hue shifts that I couldn't see. I remembered I had the glasses, and figured they might actually help for this task. Again, I wore them for only a couple videos, and found they hurt my color accuracy more than they helped. I still wasn't able to see green or magenta shifts, nor did my work benefit in any way from wearing them, even with a color calibrated monitor. My gut told me these were too good to be true. My brain told me they weren't working as advertised. But there was always the self doubt in the back of my brain that told me 'maybe you just don't know what real colors look like. Maybe the glasses work and YOU'RE the problem.'. Thank you so much for this video series. It confirmed what a lot of us suspected, while not being confident enough to call out ourselves, mainly because of 'scientific studies' and viral marketing told us we were wrong.

When these first went viral, we took my son to go and try them out. To our surprise he said they didn't do anything. The clerk said "I recommend you purchase them and give them 3 weeks to work". Sounded like BS to me. Thanks to your video it's confirmed.

you exposed companies, journalists, scientists, medical professionals. what a documentary we need people like you a lot in this day and age, thank you for the video.

I'm honestly surprised they've gone this long without anyone calling them on their scam. This is some next level content.

What you described at the end is EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED to my brother (we both have colorblindness). People at his job, which is a restaurant where nobody makes any money, all pooled their money together to get him these glasses. It made him wish he never told anyone he was colorblind. He felt like he had to play up the reaction or say they were working when he knew they weren’t. I don’t even tell people I have it any more either because of this exact situation. SO messed up

I had a lot of friends chip in to get me a pair of Enchroma glasses my senior year of high school. The glasses did offer more contrast, so I was under the impression I was seeing more shades of green and red than I had before. What touched me more was that I had felt depressed and lonely for a large part of that year, so seeing people cared about me enough to get the glasses was really uplifting. Despite the glasses being a scam, they did help me recognize how valued I was back then, so I still viewed them as a net positive.

When I was about 14 or 15 these I found out I was colorblind and went on to thoroughly learn the biology and physiology of how our vision works. A few months later is when these staged glasses videos started to pop out and I would get asked all the time if I want to get them. I was convinced these were a scam from the get go and told people as such but it would fall on deaf ears more often than not for the last 8 years. So thank you for popularizing this knowledge and making it a lot easier to convince people to not spend hundreds on this product

As a colorblind guy I’ve been saying the reaction videos were staged for years and people always say I’m wrong. Thank you for making this video.

Thank you for making this! I've known these are a scam for years. But since people know I'm color blind, I am always getting emails asking me if I have tried them. Now I can just direct them to your video!

My jaw hit the floor when the interview with Dr. Ken Onion started. That’s journalism baby!!! The guts in this fella are through the roof

My heart is breaking watching this but thank you. My wife had planned on buying these for me for my birthday. Now, I am glad we won't be throwing that money away... bittersweet.

I'm colour blind (tritanopia) in one eye only, so I offered to be part of their study. Having near-normal vision in the other eye means I can directly compare vision and what is going on. Multiple times, they never got back to me. You'd think they'd absolutely want someone like me in their tests. (EDIT: Sorry I keep spelling Tritanopathy.... so whenever you see me mention opathy, mentally replace it with opia.)

I'm colorblind and I received these glasses as a graduation gift. I felt so bad when I had to tell my family that it basically just looked like a red disneyish filter was just put over my vision and they didn't actually help me see anything I may have been missing. Glad to see your video helping to show others that it is a scam that is not worth buying into.

Awhile back I was watching a bunch of those videos where the colorblind person was all emotional, tears running down his face, etc... and the one thing that really floored me was their reactions were very extreme compared to all the videos of deaf people who could hear for the first time, or kids wearing glasses who could finally see the faces of their parents. I was very surprised that the color blind people reacted much stronger than actual sightless/deaf people who finally could see/hear. Now it makes sense to me!!! Btw, this was an exceptionally well-made expose'

This needs to be sent to every news station to warn the public!

Once again, as a colorblind person, I cannot thank you enough, this man is exposing an industry that thrives off people just wanting to see the full color spectrum.

For future reference, contact the author of the study directly for a free copy of a study - they are generally happy someone wants to read their paper. The authors receive no money from paywall research sites, so it is no skin off their nose to provide their study to someone interested in their paper.

So here's a fun fact, news organizations, especially small local ones, have the opportunity to purchase slots for their products to be "reviewed" on the news. These are more or less temporary sponsorships. Likely, if you're seeing the news talk about a specific product, its probably paid for by the company. WNEP includes my area when it comes to coverage, its sad to see they too have stooped so low.

"You cannot and should not mislead people with a disability." I think a ton of people need to learn this.

The magenta example at 16:35 is absolutely fantastic. Theoretically, if you had magic glasses that completely blocked all green light, you would now be able to 'distinguish' green better than before: everything that looks pitch black must be green. If they advertised that it would be more honest but probably also far less popular because it becomes obvious how unappealing the product is.

This man is the type of people go all out, just for the good. Definitely earning a subscriber for your good values and the unshakable journalism

Why oh why have I just now discovered your channel!!?? I've watched your entire INDEPENDENT colorblind glasses investigation. Your information is impressively researched and brilliantly presented! I most definitely subscribed. Now, I have a ton of catching up to do. Thank you for the excellent content. WELL DONE! ❤❤❤❤❤

I bought these for my father and son years ago thinking I was going to film this amazing reaction…they both were like “meh”. My father was 73 and my son was 7. I returned them immediately.

Y’all, he was as respectful as deserved to “professionals” working under a *clear* conflict of interest, refusing to acknowledge their role in the “research”, and outright backpedaling on things they’ve said. This is serious shit. Conflicts of interest like this in the scientific field are reputation-ruining-career-ending, even-because it’s wholly unethical to skew, misrepresent, or exaggerate findings in scientific research. This isn’t okay, this is a much bigger deal than you think it is. Someone practicing medicine should *not* be okay with his “research” being used to falsely advertise a “medical device” that makes pseudoscientific promises. That person should not be practicing medicine, as it’s clear that money is more important than ethics.

I recently took a journalism class at college thinking it would be an easy alternative to the dreadful “composition 2”. However, it was actually much more interesting than I had thought, and gave me a new appreciation for exposés like this one. It’s cool to see content creators make efforts to hold large corporations accountable, great reporting!

glad the strike is gone, and this amazing video is back up!!

I bought these glasses back when they were first going viral, was disappointed and stopped wearing them. Recently my family mentioned them and I brought up the first video you made. My dad's response was, "Well then why did you get scammed?" The reason: I wanted it to be true, so badly. I think the response to many scams is just like this, victim blaming, instead of holding accountable the scammer who is meticulously manipulating people. And that's exactly why they're able to get away with it.

I think the emotional response from the weather man was because he was “finally” able to distinguish the numbers on the plates that he hasn't been able to distinguish his whole life… because it changed the contrast which is part of the illusion used to identify the colorblindness itself. Then, later, when _not_ trying to read the illusions specifically designed with light and contrast to be indistinguishable to him, he started realizing that he wasn't actually seeing new colors… or some colors at all.

The pressure to perform phenomenon that you describe towards the end where the color blind person has to provide the gift giver the reaction they are expecting is also the same way a stage hypnotist makes audience members perform ridiculous things under the guise of hypnosis.

Thank you for doing this!! I have been wondering for YEARS how these glasses work, and I just couldn’t make sense of them by reading the websites. I know a decent amount about how color and vision work and none of it made sense to me how the glasses could possibly replace cones

I suffer from hyperacusis and disability level tinnitus. All the fake products and scams out there saying they cure or treat either are thrown in my face nonstop. No matter what the source of your suffering is, there’s disgusting predators fighting to take advantage of your pain. I would pay any price to get relief from either and they know that. It takes a lot of strength to stay level headed and vet things critically instead of emotionally when you spend every day tortured and barely hanging on. I’ve still unfortunately fallen for some of them and had my hope crushed.

From time to time, I saw 1 or 2 videos of people reacting and crying when they used the glasses, and I felt happy for them. What a fake world we are living in.

Colorblind woman here, hoping you read this entire admittedly long comment. People asked me if I'd heard about these, tried them, thought they would work. What really irritated me was that some of my friends and family actually wanted to get together and BUY them for me. I never actually believed they'd work -- glasses can't actually create the biological features needed to see color. THAT'S SO BASIC. I found it very irritating that at least two manufacturers of these things almost managed to con people I care about -- saved only by me having to explain colorblindness EVEN MORE FULLY to people I'd already done that dance with. I'll be sharing this video for that and one OTHER huge reason: getting other people to SEE MORE CLEARLY when it comes to EVERYTHING they read. When I was in elementary school back in the 80s, I had a teacher who actually PUNISHED me for telling her I was colorblind. The school nurse had done the basic tests, told me, and I told her -- and she said "girls can't be colorblind". She was an elderly woman, and apparently all she'd taken away from her long-ago science classes was that boys get colorblindness. She actually punished me saying I was dishonest -- LEAVING ME TO THINK I WASN'T COLORBLIND UNTIL 11TH GRADE, when an actually educated health teacher caught it. I CANNOT CONVEY WHAT A HEAD TRIP that was, or what it did to my own confidence regarding trusting my visual input. Now, TAKE A LOOK AROUND TODAY. This is a 42-minute video that practically walks a person through how to question ANYTHING they read just a bit. Who wrote it? Why did they right it? Is there an obvious bias? THIS is the video that I'm going to forward to anyone who voices anti-vax and other "well, I've done the research" entirely incorrect "scientific" spouting, rather than wasting my breath any more. Maybe with a note that if they're so sure about that garbage, they can buy these glasses to improve their "normal" vision.

My wife bought these for my dad. I'm so incredibly thankful he's honest enough to have been willing to disappoint everyone at the party - they didn't work & he said so.

I think some of Ken's bias is really a hesitancy to say anything that they could construe as slander/libel and sue him for. Though I'm not denying that there is definitely what sounds like a monetary conflict of interest involved too.

When I was in high school in like 2018 I did a biology project on colourblindness. I reached out to enchroma and asked if I could use a pair for my research. They said it was their policy not to offer the glasses for studies. I was 90% sure it was a scam back then just from my research on how colourblindness works

I feel like if this technology was real, you’d need multiple versions of different glasses, like one designed for oranges, one for yellows, one for purples, etc. not one pair that solves the entire issue.

27:48 the eyebrows speak for him, he realized how big time screwed up exposing his colegue that he haves since graduates lol

As someone who spent a decent portion of their life studying human biology and anatomy I thought it was really absurd that glasses could supposably "give" color vision when the physical receptors for the missing color(s) weren't present. I never expected to come across the same glasses in this way.

For a while I worked as a UI designer and came up against the problem of designing for color blind individuals. Naturally I learned absolutely all I could about it to the point and delved into enough research that my non-science brain could barely comprehend in order to create shaders that would simulate any form of color blindness and allow me to see and use my designs as people with color blindness see them. When someone described these glasses to me, telling me that my efforts had been for naught as "color blindness has been cured" by them, I straight up told that person that it made no sense for the glasses to work and that they were probably a scam... but that I'd be happy to be proven wrong. After that I never heard another word about them until today. I feel astonishingly vindicated to know that the gut instinct of an art nerd who did admittedly super basic research... was correct. Thank you.

Amazing and needed video! Would love for you to tackle the shadiness of Mint Mobile!

This is something I totally didn’t expect to see come up, that’s insane. I had absolutely no idea about all of this.

Now this is true journalism! Well done!

I'm not colour blind but back in the late 70s I bought a pair of cheap sunglasses that I felt looked really cool. They have a mirror finish and the frames looked really modern. When I put them on I was blown away by how much better everything looked. It was as if someone had turned up the saturation control on the world, even though, everything was slightly darker. These glasses were not sold as anything other than cheap sunglasses. Your explanation of how blocking certain wavelengths increase the contrast between similar colours makes perfect sense. I still have those cheap sunglasses (I really like them) and wouldn't mind betting they have all the benefits of enchroma glasses but without the hype.

It's hard for me to find words after this, but what you are doing means a lot.. truly incredible work.

I recently took a journalism class at college thinking it would be an easy alternative to the dreadful “composition 2”. However, it was actually much more interesting than I had thought, and gave me a new appreciation for article videos and exposés like this one. Great reporting!

watching this again to spite ken heron

As a person with moderate to severe Protanomaly, I've always been told "you should get those glasses so you can see colour." And I have to explain to them that im not paying over $400 for a bit more colour seperation. They seem very surprised after they have seen all of those emotional reaction videos. THANK YOU for highlighting the false advertising and straight-up lies from companies wanting to take your money. Even if CVD isn't a major disability, its wrong to profit on someone's weaknesses and their loved one's good faith. Love this series. Much respect.

I've been telling people about this for years. As a colorblind person who works in medicine, I've had to explain HOW colorblindness works repetitively to explain why putting something on the outside of your eyes will never work.

Dude, I watched both parts. You are amazing. The time and effort you've put into research and prodution - omg. Keep it up and thank you for the info.

My biggest fear with this product has been that one day my friends or family members would surprise me with a pair and I would fail acting "cured". The amount of misleading information and fake reactions in those videos make me almost as furious as people leaving comments like "well maybe you are not really colorblind then..." or "you just don't like to see people happy".

I am totally colourblind and I have always known those were a scam. Because it's physically impossible to see colour from a coloured lens. Really ridiculous. All my life I have used a piece of red plastic to help me identify red (not see), as it would appear black through the plastic. Nowadays I have an app that can tell what colour something is by pointing the camera. I still have an email I sent to them with questions on the physics - to which I received a bunch of gibberish pseudo scientific crap .... Glad you posted this video.

Colorblind engineer here, critical thinker. Someone showed me ads and articles when they came out and I immediately thought, 'how could a filter that subtracts color make you see more color?' It doesn't make sense. Great investigation!

I love your videos, very informative and you're a good story teller. Keep up the good work 💪

It's always amazing when scientists take time out of their day to respond to people who have questions over their papers and research. I know many who at least attempt to respond, even if it's just an email. Some are extremely busy, but are usually humbled when people ask. Consider yourself lucky that you got a full video call!

your first video really set a lot of the grifters into panic mode, even prompting some to make extremely manipulative and dishonest 'counter-debunking' videos against you. glad to see part 2 come out to put these scammers in the dirt.

When their Free test is better than entire product range.

Thank you for your journalistic investigation 🙏🏼 the world needs more people like you. Keep up the good work. Eager to see what’s next.

I remember seeing those glasses all over the internet back when I was a teen and getting so happy for colorblind people... thank you for the courage, money you spent and time you took of your daily life to expose those scammers. its crazy that their logic goes "oh, so you're colorblind? wear these glasses and you'll get another spectrum of colorblindness instead of seeing all colors, but hey! you'll have some more contrast!"

I had a pretty intense reaction to the bit with the news presenter in the eye clinic. I knew I was color deficient already by the time I was 7 or 8, but we still had to do those Ishihara tests at school, in front of all our classmates since they didn't have anywhere else to put us. Those tests were a ritual of public humiliation for me as the person giving the test forced me to invent a number out of nothing so they could tell me I was wrong and then tell me I really did have the CVD I told them I did at the beginning. What I'm getting at is that I understand how emotionally satisfying it could be to pass an Ishihara test for the first time in your life, feeling like you've finally overcome something that's been haunting you since childhood, but it's not real. I don't know if those were genuine tears, but if they were I can only imagine how bitter his disappointment must have been when he tried to wear the glasses outside, couldn't see the green light, and realized he had been had. Just disgustingly manipulative

This video is sick, amazing job. One note though: Companies sponsor and participate in studies made on their products ALL THE TIME, they are useful to validate their products' efficacy. If the study is well conducted there's nothing wrong with that. It is also very common for people from the companies making the products to co-author the studies. This is also very reasonable if you think about it: you invent something, you need to test it, you do the tests, you publish your results.

First part and this second part are the first two videos I have watched which are recorded by you. I haven't seen proper journalism in a long time, and would't have thought to find it here in youtube. Thanks for both of these videos, your work is very much appriciated.

A while after hearing about these glasses, I realized you could replicate the effect by lighting a room with the right selection of LEDs. It didn't sit well with me because I was pretty sure that would look like shit. Guess I was right!

Thank you so much for both of your videos. My father was red-green color blind and I wanted to get him these, but they were awfully expensive. Since he passed a few years ago, I have felt a little guilty knowing that he never got these so he could experience true colors. It's such a comfort to know that they wouldn't have made a difference .

Wow thank you for all the time and effort put into these videos. ❤

This is an excellent piece of investigative journalism. Absolutely gripping throughout mate

The sad thing is, as someone with CVD, I often struggle to see many colours and I'm open to mockery (friendly banter lol). BUT... I've searched high and low for a solution, and I've always wanted my own "emotional reaction video" to EnChroma glasses... this two part series broke my heart and by the end of this video, I started crying. I realised that for years, it's been a scam and that my dreams of seeing full colour spectrum is an impossibility. Its seriously crushed me. Genuinely devastated.

Even for me who hasn't learned about color blindness in this depth before, the idea of fixing different color blindness types with one and the same glasses is unbelievable. And to restore vision of one's completely missing color, by fixing the incoming light rather then the vision itself, is a claim of outright magic.

Good on Kenneth for being willing to talk openly about it. We can often subconsciously bias ourselves when we think we've found something interesting, and just leave out important sources of doubt in our excitement of finding something new. I don't think anything he has done is malicious, just falling into a trap a lot of scientists can fall into.

I'm new to your channel (thanks, algorithm!) This was great investigative journalism with high production value on a truly interesting subject matter. You've got a new sub. Keep up the great work!

First, thank you for exposing this! I love what you said, "you can't put a price on the truth." That's going to be my quote for the day, but seriously, we hope you feel appreciated for this because you are.

5:53 I recently had anesthesia for a dental operation and it temporarily made my vision go away, when it came back at first only my rod cells came back, so it was essentially like monochromacy for 5 minutes. It didn't really look like that black and white filter, everything was either the color white or the color black, it was like the contrast of my vision was boosted up to 100%

Man, watched you since you still had few thousands subscriber. Great documentary & very valuable information. 👍👍

That interview with the doctor from the news story brought back a memory of one of the best quotes I heard from a journalism professor: "You can't always get the answers you want, but you can make them look stupid in the process and that's good enough"

My aunt got these glasses for me (as I'm colorblind) but I didn't really feel its effect. I thought it was just a problem with the specific brand or it doesn't work with my type of colorblindness. Needless to say, I was relieved that tons of people had the same experience as me and it validated my experience. Thank you for making this video

Puts on terminator glasses: "it's so GREEEEEN!" XD

Ur vids are so worth the wait. Loved the AirTags one, too. Nice job and happy 2024!

I’m so sick and tired of “specialists” basically having one job and being completely clueless at it, as I get older I’m horrified at how much it actually happens

I bought some $10 colorblind glasses on eBay for fun. They do make it easier to separate some colors. But they also flattens other colors. From what I've heard in this video, they do the same job as the $300 enchroma glasses.

What a fantastic video. listened mostly while working, but excellent content and work! 👏

I hope I will see a lawsuit filed against these scammers by the end of the video.

I questioned these when I saw the reactions to the balloons. I immediately wondered how they could name the colors correctly if they'd never seen them before. Thank you for confirming my suspicions.

For future reference if you see a paywalled journal article if you have a university login (some unis let you keep it years after you graduated) you might be able to access it for free. You could also ask your subscribers or followers if they could get the article for you through their institutions library. (I'm def willing to help). Lastly, most authors will just send you their article for free bc they dont even see the money from people accessing the article, that 40 dollars you paid goes to the journal itself. (I know this last option was probably not something that wouldve worked in this specific scenario though)

This is such an amazing video, I'm so happy this (meant the 1st part) landed to my feed! Earned a sub! 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

Oh my gosh, as someone with deuteranomoly color blindness (or color vision deficiency), I've never heard such an apt description of what it is, not even from my optometrist. I'm going to refer people to the first few minutes of this video whenever someone asks me how I'm colorblind if I can still differentiate between red and green. Thank you very much!

As a hearing healthcare professional for over a decade this is fascinating. Hearing Aids are just programmable personal amplifiers that cannot directly fix auditory processing issues. It can enhance the signal that reaches the auditory processing center of the brain but it cannot make the brain more capable of interpreting and contextualizing the signal received. That requires a whole other treatment approach.

Kennith definitely seemed to be dancing around the questions quite a bit and providing a lot of vague responses LOL

I have monocromacy and no way a pair of glasses will fix the cones inside my eyes. I knew and told people it was a scam, but they told me I was negative and pesimistic. I'm glad to show them this video.

I'm colorblind myself and I'm so glad I did not buy these.

My family got me these glasses and i felt compelled to tell them they worked. Things do look different but I'm certain I'm not seeing anything worth crying over. I think you 100% nailed it in the conclusion. Thank you!

I absolutely love your investigation, and you have spared me from spending an absurd amount of money (as theses glasses go for about 4x the original price when imported to my country) just so I could wear tinted glasses. I had been seriously considering purchasing these glasses as I work with video production and constantly have to color my edits. I would love if you did a video explayining your workflow and techniques for coloring videos, as this would be extremely helpful for fellow colorblind filmmakers who struggle with this stage of post-production.

25:42 The fact that he wasn't wearing these glasses during the interview says all you need to know.

Any scientist worth their salt would LOVE to talk about their science, you can't get them to stop! If they don't want to talk that's highly suspect

"It's so green. I've never seen this before." I get the overwhelming emotion of such a moment, but stop and think for a moment: If you've never seen green before, how do you know that's what you're seeing now? This sadly proves the cruel emotional exploitation being used to sell the product (or in the media's case, selling ads).

I remember getting to try a pair from my friend- I’m a mono, so while I see in mostly shades of gray, I can decipher colours (warmer colours seem to be darker for me, while cool colours are the opposite). My friend got a pair of the Enchroma, and they were telling me that their red/green blindness wasn’t necessarily cured, but it helped saturate them. I was hoping that I could see something other than grays, given that I still remember colour. When I tried them on, I started to cry, not because I saw colour, but it just turned everything a darker shade of gray. All in all, while I’m happy that his perception of the glasses are good, I was devastated. I really, REALLY hope that someone can change this scam

Thank you for your hardwork! This deserves a separate movie xD

I recently stumbled on these when visiting the r/colorblind subreddit after being very disappointed with the enchrome glasses after almost 2 weeks of daily use (received from the side of my family I saw before actual Xmas day) These videos are great and help vindicate my initial "Wtf is this" reaction to my eventual "this is about as effective as nothing, if not worse" reactions. One thing I'll add is that while I can now mostly pass the enchroma colorblind test, I cannot pass any other online tests by organizations that arent trying to sell me products. Naturally I don't know if that means anything substantial but it adds to the skepticism about this whole product and companies as a whole.

Thank you so much, I payed 250$ for glasses with a red tint and was devastated for months because of it! I hope this video reaches the ones that are thinking about getting them before they’re curiosity sets in and it’s too late