Editorial
How we work
The value of a review site rests entirely on what it refuses to do. This page sets out our method so you can check whether the rest of the site follows it — and hold us to it when it does not.
Last reviewed August 2026. We update a page when the underlying evidence changes, not on a schedule.
Our process, in order
- 1
Start from systematic reviews, not from products
Where a systematic review exists, it takes precedence over any individual trial, and both take precedence over a manufacturer’s white paper. For this category the anchor is the 2023 Cochrane review of blue-light filtering lenses, because its method was published before its results were known.
- 2
Read individual trials for their design, not their headline
Sample size, blinding, whether there was a placebo lens, who funded it, and how long follow-up ran. A twenty-person unblinded trial and a pooled analysis of seventeen trials do not carry the same weight, and we do not present them as if they do.
- 3
Label every claim with its confidence
Strong evidence, professional consensus, or unresolved. If we cannot place a claim in one of those categories, it does not go on the site. Readers are entitled to know how much to lean on any given sentence.
- 4
Mark manufacturer claims as claims
When a company states a filtering percentage or a material specification, we attribute it to them. We do not have the instruments to verify optical claims, and we say so on the page rather than in a footnote.
- 5
Publish no number we cannot stand behind
No star ratings, no review counts, no lens weights, no filtering percentages presented as our findings, and no hard prices. Prices in this category move weekly; a figure printed on a review page is a small lie waiting to happen, so we give bands and link out.
- 6
Write the recommendation the evidence supports
Including when that recommendation is “do not buy this”, or “see an optometrist instead”. Both appear repeatedly on this site, and both cost us money.
Our confidence labels
- Strong evidence
- Supported by a systematic review of randomised trials, or by the settled position of a major professional body. You can act on this.
- Professional consensus
- What clinicians and their professional bodies advise, where the underlying trial evidence is limited but the reasoning is sound and widely accepted.
- Unresolved
- A plausible mechanism with trial evidence that is small, mixed or poorly controlled. Worth knowing about; not worth spending much on.
How we handle the conflict of interest
Affiliate links create a real incentive to recommend purchases. We manage it in three ways, all of which you can verify by reading the site.
- The evidence pages come first. Our homepage leads with the finding that these products probably do not work as advertised. A reader who stops there has got the most important thing we have to say and cost us nothing.
- Disclosure sits next to the links. Not only in the footer. Any block of retailer links carries a notice immediately above it, and every commercial link is marked
sponsored. - We recommend against buying where that is the right answer. Repeatedly, and in the places where a purchase would otherwise be most likely.
How we handle updates
Pages carry a single "last reviewed" date, and it reflects when someone actually reread the page against its sources — not an automated timestamp bumped to look fresh. We do not add a review date to a page we have not reviewed, and we do not claim a publishing cadence we cannot keep. If the underlying evidence changes, the page changes; if it does not, the page stays as it is and the date stays honest.
What would change our conclusions
Stating this in advance is a discipline worth having. We would revise the eye-strain conclusion given an adequately powered, properly blinded randomised trial — or an updated systematic review — demonstrating a clinically meaningful benefit. We would firm up the sleep section given larger placebo-controlled trials using well-characterised lenses and objective sleep measures. We would revise our position on any specific product if the manufacturer published a full transmission curve from an independent laboratory.
If you know of evidence that meets one of those descriptions, send it to corrections@blueblockreview.com.