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Walleva Replacement Lens Review | Oakley Mr. Shield Lenses

Walleva replacement lenses offer an affordable option for changing your lenses. But do they stand up to the test? We’re reviewing Walleva Mr. Shield Oakley lenses to see if they are worth your time!

Who is Walleva?

Walleva, LLC is an aftermarket lens and parts manufacturer based in Rockville, Maryland.

Originally focusing on Oakley and Ray-ban lenses, they’ve now expanded to some of the most popular brands including Costa, Spy Optics, and more.

And across these brands, they focus on 3 main products:

  • Replacement lenses (including Polarized and Non-Polarized options)
  • Replacement rubber kits (like earsocks and nosepads)
  • Replacement thrubolts (for hinges)

What are Mr. Shield Lenses?

Starting, Mr. Shield is the name Walleva has chosen for its premium lenses. Compared to Walleva’s regular offerings, the Mr. Shield lens adds hydrophobic and oleophobic (repels facial oils) coatings and is taper-corrected, which creates some hopeful thinking of an aftermarket lens with real optical quality.

These lenses offer 100% UV Protection and Polarization to protect against glare.

Mr.Shield Highlights

  • Resistance to corrosion by seawater and chlorine
  • Hydrophobic treatment
  • Oleophobic treatment (oils and fingerprints)
  • Meets ANSI Z87.1 impact standards.
  • 100% UVA/B/C ray protection
  • Polarization filter
  • Taper-correction

Walleva Mr. Shield Oakley Lens Review

The Gear

This review will be based on Mr. Shield lenses in Oakley Jawbone frames. The lenses I have are vented and feature a blue mirror finish.

Presentation and Packaging

The production-ready Mr. Shield lenses come with elaborate packaging — much more than the original sample I handled, which just had the basic setup.

For Mr. Shield, Walleva has a larger hard box containing the lenses in an MF pouch, an instruction booklet, and Walleva’s cleaning spray. The box has a magnetic closure and could pretty much fit my Jawbones when the other contents are removed. Pretty spiffy.

Walleva Mr.Shield Unboxing

While this has nothing to do with the lenses themselves, the packaging is a pretty nice extra for the lenses — which are retailing for $50 on Walleva’s website. The original review was done before their availability, but as of this review, they are available for several Oakley frames.

Walleva Lenses in Box

Fit and Finish

One key difference between this and my previous sample is the thickness. The production-ready Mr. Shield is much closer to OEM thickness and has beveled edges. Big deal to those familiar with aftermarket, as most examples would be unpleasantly-thin.

Regarding the cut and fit, these lenses do pop in just like OEM. In the context of the Jawbone/Racing Jacket, it’s pretty impressive, as most aftermarket lenses run a bit tall, not accounting for the pads within the frame and therefore requiring a bit of a squeeze to clip the jaws shut.

Oakley Lenses compared to Walleva Lenses
OEM Oakley lenses (left) vs. Mr. Shield Walleva Lenses (right) – Photo: Ventruck

The last thing to touch on in this department is an impressively consistent mirror finish. The Walleva’s Blue Mirror,, in particular, is a bit of a lighter hue than Oakley’s Ice Iridium. And if you care about hiding your eyes, these will surely do the job.

So in all, the Mr. Shield lenses do come off like a proper premium lens to start.

Visual Performance

In testing the Mr. Shield lenses, I was in contact with Margot from Walleva. She was very responsive to my questions and concerns and let me see testing documents.

These documents covered clarity, UV protection, impact protection (ANSI Z87.1), and color balance. Unfortunately, I can’t distribute these documents since they are the property of Walleva and the testing party, nor can I get into complete details.

What I can say is that refractive and astigmatic power were reported mostly below (and never above) 0.05 dioptres across all the Mr. Shield samples. In layman’s terms, this is a good (i.e. minimal) value comparable to higher-end lens makers, including Oakley themselves.

Of course, those factors aren’t the end-all in determining clarity, but carrying the lenses into real-life usage, I’ve been impressed. I legitimately need to see a projector slide comparison to catch what’s off with these lenses.

Walleva Lens Replacement in Oakley Jawbone
Blue Mirror Mr. Shield Lenses in Oakley Jawbone sunglasses – Photo: Ventruck

Color and Tint

In my earlier review of Mr. Shield lenses, I tried Walleva’s Emerald mirror finish. And overall, the color was hard to judge because those lenses had such a strong violet tint behind them. They did operate well as some form of contrast lens (yellows/oranges/whites stood out), but in getting this recent set, I requested something more neutral to get a better idea of how well these perform.

If you know Oakley’s Ice Iridium, you know it’s near neutral. Walleva’s Blue is a bit browner, but the eyes surely adjust in due time compared to the Emerald I initially used.

Wearing Walleva Blue

But the Walleva Blue made for a better impression because instead of isolating colors, it just gave me a good share of definition for everything. So not to be cliche, but these did effectively make things “pop”.

This is really something you’re only going to get out of the closer-to-neutral tints. If this was say, a red or orange mirror finish, I’d anticipate more of a blue tint; if we were talking about a bolder blue or violet finish, I’d expect a stronger brown tint — basically, it helps if you’re familiar with Oakley’s Iridium collection starting on neutral bases.

That all being said, these lenses are impressive. However, if Mr. Shield’s mirror finish had been tuned more specifically, I could have mistaken it for Ice Iridium. That’s because the only perceivable difference I could make out was the slightly brown tint vs. more neutral tint.

While I’m no expert in the optical field to completely digest and dissect the test results, the fact that Walleva did pursue testing and didn’t hesitate to share them with me does give me a lasting impression.

Other Aspects/Features

  • Hydrophobic coating: Yes — basically if I showed you a picture of this, you’d see a dry lens anyway.
  • Oleophobic coating: Yes — this is actually pretty impressive. Works until longer wears and heavier sweat.
  • Polarization filter: Yes — I don’t know why, but both Walleva samples I’ve used are really good at not being too noticeable when it comes to downsides, such as screen rainbows and light fluctuation. They are more or less at that same 45 degree angle as most filters are set.

While I couldn’t test impact myself, I know from the document provided that these lenses have passed all their tests for Walleva. And they confidently state that Mr. Shield lenses meet ANSI Z87.1 standards. While it’s tough to say how these compare to Plutonite lenses, and with ANSI level protection your eyes are covered.

Final Thoughts – Are They Worth It?

The gap from aftermarket lenses to Original Oakley or OEM lenses appears to be shrinking. I’m not saying these are the same, but they are very close to Oakley quality. And compared to previous aftermarket lenses I’ve reviewed, these are easily at the top.

For $50, these lenses came in a very nice overall package with the box and cleaner. Looking at Oakley’s online catalog, a lot of OEM equivalents are still available, and I know swearing to the Oakley oath can outweigh the value. I can imagine Mr. Shield selling more lenses with completely retired frames and X-Metals where price and availability are bigger factors.

The only downside we found with our Walleva experience was guessing what the actual lens colors and tints look like. This will really depend on how picky of a lens wearer you are. Are you ever going to get a red lens when you thought you were getting blue? No, but if you’re looking for an exact color match to Oakley lenses, you may be disappointed from color to color.

Overall, Mr. Shield lenses delivered here and they’re definitely worth a try if you’re open to aftermarket lenses. Plus check out our complete guide to the Best Oakley Replacement Lenses for more.

Have a Question?

Looking for more on Walleva Replacement Lenses? Or have a question about other replacement lenses? Join the largest online Oakley community and let us know below!

Note: This review is based on member Ventruck’s original reviews of the Mr.Shield lenses and modified for formatting. All credit to his amazing work reviewing these lenses.

Created this site because of the lack of a place for the Oakley Community to talk. Feel free to Message me any time with feedback for the site, tips o...
One can were Mr. Shield while waiting for Mr. Coffee to finish brewing!!!
 
@Ventruck the effort to review the lens is very much appreciated and hopefully will be available in X-Metal lenses.
I like the etched lens, I may be a minority on that, but it is nice to instantly identify the lens installed in the discontinued frame rather than guessing, the etch design might be not that nice but it is nice enough.
 
very crappy , dont buy them they dont fit properly , ,distort vision , rattle in the frame
 
Do you guys do older Zero lenses? Or could you? I have had both of my Zero frames snapped. I have heard of some people that could cut them out of goggle lenses. I would by happy to send you the goggle lenses. The other cutter said he just cut them out with a Dremel tool. I would appreciate it if you could do this for me. Thanks, John

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