Speedo Aquapure Prescription Goggles – Review

As I mentioned in the Zoggs review, finding prescription goggles isn’t easy especially if you are a competitive swimmer. I have seen some goggles that look very similar to the Zoggs pair, including a speedo version I used to buy in China, and I have seen and tried prescription goggles that were just about ok for training, but would never do for a race. Compared to all of these though Speedo’s Aquapure goggles really break the mould.

These goggles are available in a number of different colour combinations and there are both mirrored and non-mirrored options available for the lenses. While the full range of prescription strengths are available, as far as I can tell you can’t have different the eye pieces at different strengths.

They are built using Speedo’s IQfit technology; IQfit’s strap mechanism, and IQfit’s 3D seal around the eye pieces. The nose bridge is interchangeable and 3 different sized ones come with it.

I found these goggles comfortable, but it took a few minutes to get used to them. I think this was due to the different eye socket shape they have compared to other prescription goggles I’ve used. They have a low profile and are a little wider and flatter than the Zoggs goggles. This gives a larger field of vision, probably the largest I’ve ever seen in prescription goggles.

I have to say of all the goggles I’ve used in my time, the nose bridges in these are the easiest to change. They pop out very easily when changing them but are incredibly solid and will not come apart when swimming.

While I really like these goggles and wore them a lot, I feel there is one thing in their design that they fall down on: the straps. The IQfit technology in the straps looks great and I can see the thinking behind them, you can make sure they are set to the same measurement each time you put them on. Unfortunately, I found that over time they loosened during swimming. After a while I found the best thing to do was to wear my cap over them, but I would still need to re-tighten them sometimes. This only got worse as the goggles got older. I should point out that I’m talking about this happening over a training session. I’ve never had any problems from them when diving and sprinting, but the fear of them loosening in a race meant I have only ever used them in one or two races. I should point out though that I usually find one style of goggles for racing and stick with it, so when I first started wearing these I already had my set racing goggles so I was unlikely to change those anyway.

All in all these are great goggles and it is good to see Speedo incorporating IQfit technology into prescription goggles. I definitely recommend these to any competitive swimmers that need prescription goggles.