Soda Concept’s 3D Printed Sunglasses Bring Customization to Eyewear

If you are like me, you can never have enough pairs of sunglasses. I have a pair that I wear with my red dress, one that I wear with my leather jacket, and even one pair that I only wear when I go shopping. I know…. crazy…. right? Sunglasses have become way more than just a method of protecting your eyes from the sun. They have become an ultimate fashion statement. One problem that I have found though, is that if you want a good pair of quality sunglasses, you must be ready to fork over between $60-$300.

A company named Soda Concept, with the use of 3D printing, wants to allow anyone to totally customize their shades. And if you want more than one pair, it won’t cost you a ton of money. You can simply pop the lenses out and put them into a new set of Soda Concept frames.

When you hear of a company utilizing 3D printing in order to create a product, you probably imagine them using a $250,000+ professional level 3D printer. Soda sunglasses doesn’t use any extremely expensive 3D printers. They simply utilize a $2000 Makerbot Replicator 2 in order to 3D print all of their frames.

When purchasing a pair of sunglasses from Soda Concept, the process is very simple. You simply choose between one of four different frame styles; the UNO, the DUE, the TRE, or the QUATTRO. Then you select the color for your frames and a separate (or same) color for the arms. There are 22 different colors to choose from, and the arms don’t need to match the frames, since they are printed in separate pieces.

Soda sunglasses cost only 39,95€ for a complete pair, including lenses, frames, and arms. You can then purchase additional arms for 9,95€ and additional frames for 14,95€. The lenses fit into any Soda frames, thus there is no need to ever own more than one pair of sunglasses. Simply pop the lenses out, put them into the frames of your choice, and select the arm color that you desire. Tada! You have a new pair of sunglasses.

All of the sunglasses are printed using a biodegradable PLA plastic. What do you think? Is this the future of sunglasses? Discuss in the Soda Concept Sunglasses forum thread on 3DPB.com