UV protection coated masks

After 16 years of use, my Mares X Vision broke down on one of the frame. I absolutely loved this mask but reckon that frameless masks sound appealing too.

I saw a few manufacturers that provide UV protection coating on the masks (Apeks VX1) but have a few questions

- is the coating tint annoying for the eyes or does the brain adapt to it?

- Can other divers see the eyes still with that coating? If not, then it's a no-go for me, safety first..

Keen to hear your thoughts on this, if it is a gimmick or not etc.

Thanks!

Firstly, straight glass is actually quite good at absorbing UV rays, blocking 90% of light below 300nm wavelength and secondly UV is very quickly absorbed by water.  So the only time you need UV protection is when you are floating around on the surface and I would think the UV absorbance of ordinary glass would probably be good enough for most purposes, unless you are on the surface for extended periods.

I would say most of the tinted lenses around are more a gimmick than anything else, apparently for spear fishing there is a supposed advantage to a fish not being able to see your eyes - which may or may not be the case.  However it is entirely possible to treat lenses/glass to block UV without any sort of tint treatment, for example many industrial clear safety glasses are have UV treatment to block harmful rays. Another example is wratten filters, here's the spectrum for a Wratten 2A, which is a very plave yellow:  https://www.kodak.com/content/products-brochures/Film/Basic-Color-Filters-W2-2A.pdf  

I believe TUSA has an option for UV block coating on its lenses that is not a tint as such.  There are probably others.

Thank you Chris for this - very helpful, i got a clear mask !

Alex