Phone and Internet Outages

UPDATE 08/14/26: Seems to be finally fixed!

UPDATE 8/13/26: If you’re unable to use the landline, we have forwarding set up to go to Amanda’s Cell phone.

UPDATE 8/12/26: Comcast is finally swapping the whole “NODE” for our area to hopefully put these issues to bed. It will take us down for about a half an hour with our phones (approx. time 10:20am PST to 11am PST). Again, sorry for the inconvenience this has caused.

We’re again having some outages related to Comcast, if a phone call fails to connect or drops it is most likely due to this. Try again in a few minutes and hopefully it will get through.

This time it may be related to fire damage to the infrastructure and crews are working on restoring access to parts of Spokane. We appreciate your patience.

Large Fires in Spokane: August 1st-August 4th

August 2nd 3:00am: As of right now, all of our employees have been able to evacuate to safe areas if they were in harm’s way and in an evacuation area. We’re unsure of three employees houses at the moment as they were very close to fire lines

August 2nd 3:00pm: Seems that all employees houses and lodgings are safe for the moment, but fire crews are not reporting containment numbers yet. The Fairview fire was just north of the laboratory by less than a mile, but we have power, phones, and internet and can resume operations.

August 3rd 6:45am: We may be short staffed today as some employees haven’t had much sleep the past two days.

August 3rd 4:30pm: Good news: Both the “Old Trails” fire and the “Fairview” fire have slowed down and are mostly smoldering at the moment. They should hopefully not cause much issue so long as the wind doesn’t pick up.

Bad news: The “Autumn lane” fire doesn’t have containment and has turned south towards the city. Hopefully fire crews are able to hold the lines overnight, but most evacuation notices will stay in effect right now.

August 4th 6:30am: Authorities have caught someone accused of starting one of the fires and they have them in custody. The “Autumn Lane” fire seems to be mostly held up in the same place overnight so hopefully this is the last update unless something significant changes.

Our thoughts are with the people that were impacted by the fires and hope there was no loss of life. Thanks to everyone that has reached out the past few days to check on everyone at Encore Vision.

-Tyler H.

Internet and Phone Outages

Our internet and phone provider has had several intermittent outages for the past few days and we’re unsure if it will continue into next week. If you cannot reach us by phone, please try again in 15-20 minutes and hopefully it will be back online in this time. 06/05/26

Update for July 14th, 2026: We’re still having occasional outages as they upgrade our area. Both phone and internet have been problematic today. Thanks Comcast!

High Index 1.74 (MR-174) Shortage

We have heard that select manufacturers have run into shortages of 1.74 index lenses across various base curves and colors. Although we do not know if this will apply to our own vendors yet, the global supply is facing constraint and may eventually affect our own supply of lenses. This disruption may last the next few months.

Encore will inform our customers as soon as we have more details, and if this will impact orders going forward. Thank you for your understanding.

New Prices Active

Our new lens price guides are now active as of March 1st. Locate them to accurately quote patients for laboratory work. Please read the accompanying newsletter to learn what new products are now available.

The largest introduction for 2026 is 1.60 index lenses. This MR-8 material will allow patients to get many of the benefits of polycarbonate (UV blocking, drillable, grooveable, thin, and lightweight) but have the increased clarity that comes with the higher Abbe value. The optics vastly outperform polycarbonate and patients should not experience chromatic aberration.

(Accounts that participate in a Blanket Purchase Agreement may use their current price guides until they renew at a later date.)

Temporary Disco Transitions Bifocals&Trifocals in Polycarbonate

Due to quality issues upstream with Poly ST28, ST35 and STT7x28 Transitions, we will be temporarily discontinuing the product line. Defects were due to bubbles and pits in the scratch coat causing low yields and reworks in the lab before we were able to ship a defect free pair. Transitions products sold in the last year will continue to perform excellently and we hope to offer it in the future after cosmetic defects from the manufacturer upstream are addressed.

It will be left on our online catalog for anyone that may have missed this blog post, but will be calling customers to switch to our Photochromic product instead.

New Lenses and Price Guides!

Encore Vision now offers the Camber Steady Plus suite of lenses that are amongst the best our industry has to offer. These lenses feature a dual-sided design that takes a variable front curve and combines it with IOT Digital Ray Path to accomplish unmatched vision quality and comfort. Hyperopic patients will also enjoy flatter and thinner lenses due to the dual-sided design, but all prescriptions will get the latest technology that reduces swim and sway with binocular balance improvements. Read more about camber technology here www.camberlens.com or you can read our brochure on the Camber Steady Plus.

Due to this new offering we will be sending out new price guides effective July 7th, 2025. On this price guide we’re happy to announce some cost decreases on several product lines including all high-index lenses.

New Prices Active March 1st

New frame and lens price guides were mailed out by February 18th and should be delivered at your clinic. If you have not already located them, please ask your mail room. If needed, Encore can email PDF copies or custom markup versions (such as 20% increase or fitting fee) for pricing directly to patients.

Included in the packet of information may also be new frame stickers, for frames that have changed prices. Be sure to change them out so that you can accurately quote prices to patients.

Lastly, please read the included newsletter describing lens discontinuations, new products, frame changes, and changes to high power ranges.