Though both of my parents wear glasses, I didn’t myself, at least until eleventh grade. At that point, from my customary seat in the back row, I started having trouble reading what teachers wrote on the board. Rather than force a move to the front of the class, I got glasses. And though my prescription is totally pansy, enough so that my driver’s license doesn’t even stipulate a ‘corrective lenses’ restriction, I was thrilled enough by the razor-sharp clarity the glasses provided that I took to wearing them all the time.

A few months later, I got disposable contacts, too. And for my last two years in California, and my four years at Yale, I wore contacts more than half of the time. But when I moved to NYC, I found the gritty city air made contacts wildly uncomfortable for me after just a few hours. So, for the most part, I switched to wearing glasses full-time, defaulting to contacts only when glasses were particularly inconvenient, like when I was working out, or headed to the beach. Eventually, given the expense of disposables, I started phasing them out for workouts, too, defaulting instead to wandering the gym slightly blind.

So I was excited a few months back to discover Hubble Contacts, a subscription web service that delivers daily disposable contacts to your door for less than half the price of other providers.

I’ve been a loyal Warby Parker customer for the past six or seven years; their glasses are stylish, well constructed, and perfectly priced. And though the quality isn’t quite as good, and they don’t offer a home try-on option, I’ve also purchased a number of sunglasses from Zenni Optical. I have a terrible history of losing sunglasses in ocean waves, smashing them in bike crashes, etc. And as the Zenni’s run about $25 a pop (including the prescription lenses!), they’ve been perfect for me. (Jess, who’s also a Warby fan, has similarly used Zenni to stock up on a handful of ‘fun’ frames from Zenni; while you might not want bright red glasses as your only daily wear, at $25-30, the Zennis are cheap enough to be an occasional accessory).

Hubble offers a first set of 15 pairs of disposable contacts for just $3 in shipping cost. With next to nothing to lose, I decided they were worth testing out.

Based on some Googling, I determined that Hubble’s lenses are made from methafilcon A, with 55% water content, and a Dk score (a measure of oxygen permeability; higher is better) of 18. By way of comparison, Acuvue 1-Day Moist (what I’d worn before) have a Dk of 28, Acuvue1-Day TruEye a Dk of 55, and Dailies Total 1 a whopping Dk of 156.

And, indeed, for extended wear, I found the Hubbles just slightly less comfortable than than my prior Acuvues. But, frankly, neither are particularly comfortable for me for more than four or five hours. And within the hour or three window of a trek to the gym, I couldn’t differentiate them all, even when wearing a different brand in each eye.

So, for me, Hubble is a big win. They’re cheap enough that I’ve again returned to wearing contacts while working out. Though, if you’re an all-day contacts wearer, they may be less ideal. Nonetheless, for $3 in shipping, and the prospect of a 50% savings going forward if you decide you love them, it’s probably worth the experiment. Try Hubble out.