Polarized Sunglasses UV400 Tactical

Glare off the water hides what you're looking for.

Late in the day the sun drops, the surface of the water turns into a sheet of white, and you stop seeing anything under it. No drop-off, no weed line, no fish. You spend the best hour of the session squinting into it. Same story on a haul road at four in the afternoon, or heading west up a wet highway with the windscreen full of low sun.

Squinting is not just uncomfortable. You start missing detail — the wet patch on the road, the rock sitting just under the boat, the bloke stepping out from behind a light vehicle. Miss the detail and you get a near miss; keep missing it and you get an incident, a report and a day you would rather not have had. Your eyes ache by knock-off and you have been working off half the information you should have had.

A polarised lens cuts the reflected light bouncing off flat surfaces — water, wet bitumen, a bonnet, a windscreen. That is what these do. They are a sports wrap from a supplier branded CoolPandas: polycarbonate frame, polarised lens, five tints, 31.6 g on your face, and a hard case to keep them in.

What we cannot tell you is which lens category they are. No category number, no AS/NZS mark and no CE mark is printed on the lens, the arm, the case or anywhere in the supplier's own artwork, and no test certificate has been sighted. That matters if you want a known category on your face, so the Limits tab sets out exactly what is marked and what is not.

What It Does

• Cuts the sheet off water: reflected light coming off a flat surface is exactly what a polarised lens is built to knock down, which is why the fishing crowd buys them before anyone else does.
• Takes the shine off bitumen: a wet road and a sunlit bonnet throw the same kind of flat reflection. Read the Limits tab before you make these your driving pair — no lens category is printed on them.
• Saves you a day of squinting: a full shift in open sun on a site, a deck or a paddock is what leaves your eyes aching, and a tinted wrap with side coverage is the simplest fix for it.
• A tint for the light you get: five to choose from, black through to yellow, so you can match the pair to whether you are in hard midday sun or flat grey overcast.
• Something to keep them in: a hard zip case, a microfibre pouch and a cloth come in the box, so the pair does not end up loose in the console getting chewed up.

Key Features

• Polarised lens: cuts reflected light off flat surfaces. The supplier also states an anti-reflective treatment; no coating thickness or type is given.
• Polycarbonate frame: the supplier's own information panel lists the frame material as PC. The old listing said acetate, and that was wrong.
• 31.6 g on your face: the supplier's stated weight for the frame and lenses together.
• 69 mm lens width: with a 45 mm lens height and a 19 mm bridge, taken off the supplier's dimensioned drawing.
• 127 mm temple arms: straight-back sports arms with a moulded grip section behind the ear.
• Wrap shape with side cover: the frame carries the lens around toward the temple rather than stopping square at the edge of your eye.
• Grey brow insert: a contrasting moulded strip runs along the top of the frame and into the hinge on every colourway.
• Five lens tints: black, mirrored orange, yellow, mirrored blue and tea brown. The supplier labels the yellow pair GUN/YELLOW on one panel and BLACK/YELLOW on another.
• Kit in the box: hard zip case, microfibre pouch, cleaning cloth and a polarised test card, all marked CoolPandas.
• No lens category printed: nothing on the lens, arm, case or packaging shows a category, an AS/NZS number or a CE mark, and no certificate has been sighted.

Limits

This is the part of the page that matters most on a pair of sunglasses, so here it is straight.

• No lens category is marked: sunglasses sold in Australia and New Zealand are expected to carry a lens category from 0 to 4 under AS/NZS 1067.1. Nothing in the supplier's images shows a category number, an AS/NZS mark or a CE mark, and no test certificate has been sighted. We are not going to tell you which category these are, because nobody has told us.
• UV400 is a marketing term: it describes blocking up to 400 nanometres. It is not a standard, it is not a certification, and no test report came with it. The supplier's own UV400 photograph shows a counter-top tester in a shop, which is not a laboratory result.
• Polarised is not UV: they are two different things and cheap eyewear runs them together constantly. Polarisation cuts glare off flat surfaces. On its own it does nothing about ultraviolet. The glare behaviour you can check yourself with the test card in the box; the ultraviolet claim you cannot.
• These are not safety glasses: no part of this frame or lens is tested or marked to AS/NZS 1337.1, the eye and face protection standard, and none is claimed. Keep them off your face for grinding, chipping, cutting, line trimming or anything else that throws debris.
• Never for welding or the sun: no welding shade number is marked on them. Do not use them for welding or oxy work, and never look directly at the sun or at an eclipse through any tinted lens.
• Not a driving recommendation: which lenses suit driving comes back to the lens category, and no category is printed here. That decision belongs to you with a number you can read off the frame, not to us with a number we have guessed.
• Not alpine or glacier gear: bright snow at altitude is what Category 4 lenses exist for. Nothing here is marked Category 4, so do not take them up a mountain expecting that.
• No corrective power: these are plano sunglasses. No prescription, no reader magnification, and the supplier says nothing about fitting a prescription insert behind the lens.
• One frame size only: the supplier lists the fit as men's and publishes a single set of measurements. There is no small, no large and no adjustment beyond bending the arms.
• Screens can go dark: polarised lenses interact with the polarising filter in an LCD, so a dash display, a phone or a sounder can dim or black out at certain angles. Tilt your head and it comes back. That is how polarisation works, not a fault.
• No water or impact figure: no immersion rating and no impact test result is specified by the supplier, so treat them as ordinary sunglasses and nothing more.

Q & A

Do these carry an Australian lens category?

No, and that is the honest answer. The Australian and New Zealand standard for sunglasses is AS/NZS 1067.1, and it puts a lens into a category from 0 to 4 — roughly, 0 and 1 are light tints for overcast and indoor use, 2 is a medium tint, 3 is what most people think of as a sunglass for open sun, and 4 is very dark and is not for road use. No category number appears anywhere on this product or its packaging in the supplier's images, and no certificate has been sighted. If a marked category is what you need, look for the number on the swing tag or inside the arm before you buy any pair of sunglasses, ours included.

Does UV400 mean they are certified?

No. UV400 is a supplier's shorthand for blocking wavelengths up to 400 nanometres. It is a marketing term, not a standard, and there is no body that issues a UV400 certificate. The supplier photographs the lens on a small counter-top tester and the display reads UV400; that is a shop demonstration, not a test report. We have quoted it because it is what the supplier states and it is in the product name, not because we can stand behind it as a rating.

Which tint should I pick?

Black is the darkest of the five and is the safe pick for hard open sun. Tea is a warm brown mid tint. The mirrored orange and mirrored blue are darker again on the outside face, and they are the ones people buy on looks as much as anything. Yellow is the lightest of the five and lets the most light through, which makes it the wrong choice on a bright day. Plenty of sellers claim a yellow lens improves night driving — nothing supplied with this product supports that, so we are not going to say it.

Will they fit my head?

There is one size. The lens is 69 mm across and 45 mm tall, the bridge between the lenses is 19 mm, and the arms are 127 mm long. The supplier lists the fit as men's. The quickest check is to measure a pair you already wear and get on with: lay them face down, measure straight across one lens, and compare it to the 69 mm figure. Anything within a few millimetres will sit much the same.

What comes in the box?

The sunglasses, a hard zip case, a soft microfibre pouch, a cleaning cloth and a small blue polarised test card. The case, pouch and cloth are all printed CoolPandas, which is the supplier's brand. Hold the test card up and look at it through the lens — the hidden pattern only appears through a genuinely polarised lens, so you can check that part yourself on the day it arrives.

How long until they turn up?

Allow 10–14 days from the day you place the order, and up to three weeks if you are regional or remote. Delivery is free to anywhere in Australia and New Zealand.

Specs