Is Swaroclean still used on any current production binoculars? (2 Viewers)

[Kiwimac]

Just that. I know it’s not on NL but is it still used on any current products?

I’ve seen shop listings for SLCs and BTX that mention it but they might just be inaccurate out of date listings copied from older catalogues.

 

[Stuarts vision]

Swarovski days are up mate. They shot theirself in the foot, with their eco friendly armour, pardon the pun.

 

[John A Roberts]

Hi Kiwimac,

Seemingly not. The most recent detailed information from Swarovski seems to be from back in July 2021:

Fascinated by the condensation “issue” and possible explanations I approached Swarovski directly and asked the question about SwaroClean and possible changes in condensation properties..
The answer was:
-quote - Swarovski gives top priority to sustainable products and reduction of environmental impact during their manufacture. Therefore the SWAROCLEAN coating is no longer applied to all SWAROVSKI OPTIK products. With this step all coatings become PFC-free. This change does not affect the optical quality of the product or its service life. The NL PURE series has been without SWAROCLEEAN since the beginning of production. For the EL binoculars, the coating was changed over in the course of 2020. – unquote-.

Condensation is obviously not an "optical property", hence I zoomed into the condensation properties in a follow-up question and directly asked to comment on effects from the change on possible condensation .

The answer was
-quote- According to our research and development department, it is assured that there are no optical disadvantages in quality or life time of lenses through this devoid of PFC. There are no consequences of more condensation with proper use and stocking. -unquote-
. . .

So where Swaroclean was used, it was phased out during 2020.

It was not used on the various CL or Habicht binoculars.
For information from Swarovski regarding the CL's, see post #9 at: Difference between Phase-correcting P-coating and SWAROBRIGHT?
And on the Habichts, see post #16 at: The Habicht 10x40 ...


It was introduced in 2006, again see post #16 in the link above.


John

 

[Richard D]

There might be old stock around that used it but not current production. It's likely that the other European manufacturers will be forced to follow suit with the chemicals likely to be banned for environmental reasons. Personally I think the advantages of these beading solutions are a bit over marketed - you still get water droplets forming on the lenses even after a shake just less of them.

 

[Scott98]

there are alternatives to PFAS that could be used.. Clothing manufacturers like Jack Wolfskin have switched to other hydrophobic chemicals. I'm not sure what they're using - "Nikwax" is an alternative used on a lot of outdoor products, I believe it's a blend of natural oils that do the same thing as PFAS but are less toxic or non-toxic. As long as they're transparent I would think they could be used on lenses.

 

[wllmspd]

You could nano texture a surface coating so it has no effect on the light and changes the contact angle so water won’t wet the surface.
Peter