Bifocals are horrendously obnoxious. These glasses have two different and very specific optical powers that can help people who have myopis, hyperopis, presbyopia, and/or astigmatism. Seeing as your field of vision has two different parts to it, these glasses quite frequently cause headaches for their users.
Although they have been around for a while, you may not have heard of the Superfocus glasses, which is an alternative to bifocals. The most obvious reason for this being their price tag which is over $700. They come in only one style, but all have a progressive slider that will allow you to adjust the lenses’ focal point so you can see either near or far over an entire area rather than a small portion. The magic behind these are two lenses, one flexible and one firm. In between the two lenses is a clear crystal fluid that will alter in shape as you move the slider about. Different shape means a different correction, which gives you crystal clear vision.
That sounds like a huge pain in the ass. And I don't know where you get the idea that bifocals are "horrendously obnoxious". Most people I know who wear them have no complaints at all, and if anything this sounds like it would cause more headaches than standard bifocals.
These glasses are nothing more than a cheap gimmick. Yeah, the theory is cool but their main problem isn't that they're so ugly and so expensive. The main problem is that you need your hand to focus. With a pair of progressives I can simply move my eye up, middle, or down and I'm instantly focused. With Superfocus I must move my hand to the bridge of my nose every time I change views – just think about it, how annoying would that be? Also, it's obviously an analog focus controlled by a slider. Have you ever tried focusing a microscope? The image starts blurry, then it's clear, and if you overshoot the focusing wheel it's blurry again. Imagine driving at night, looking down at a blurry radio display, taking you hand off the wheel to focus in order to tune the radio, then looking up at a blurry road in front of you, and again taking your hand off the wheel to refocus on the road (assuming that you can refocus before you hit the car, or unseen person, in front of you). Or, imagine reading the paper while watching television. With bifocals or progressives you simply look up to see the TV and look down to read the paper. With superfocals, you'll need to constantly refocus every time you look up or down; and God forbid you overshoot the focus on the slider (which probably happens more time than not). The makers of this joke of a product can spin their marketing any way they like, but for this product to have any value at all it would have to sense the distance of your focal point and autofocus. You can bet the superfocus people are working on just that but they want to sell the crap product they have (the not yet ready for prime time product) to any dupe that will buy it. Anyone who buys these is going to get ripped off, and later will be very sorry when the autofocus version is released. Like I said, the theory is cool and maybe a very primitive first step, but it certainly isn't worth the headache.
I wear lines free bifocals and they are no headache or "horrendously obnoxious" at all. In fact there is a transition between the focal points that makes these glasses just as good as these $700 glasses while costing 1/7 the price. Sorry superfocus, super EPIC FAIL! >:-P