Optical Goods Database Updated: 14,719 Selected U.S. Locations

The Optical Goods Database has a new release. Build #164, version 2.0.0, contains 14,719 selected U.S. business locations across all 50 states. Usage provides the locations table. Publication adds published contact rows, while Master adds source traceability and a small set of clearly labeled historical facts. Every added table connects through location_id.

What is in the October 14 release

The locations table contains 14,719 selected places: 9,093 eyewear stores, 1,421 sunglasses stores, 141 optical wholesalers, 3,815 selected optometry places, and 249 selected vision or eye-care clinics. The care-center selection uses names that explicitly establish optical-goods or contact-lens relevance. This is a focused release, not an exhaustive count of every optician, eye clinic, repair service, or manufacturer in the United States.

Each location carries a stable identifier, name, address, coordinates, business segment and category, operating-status field, and source confidence. A category or name does not verify professional credentials, stock, services, or current availability. The 14,719 figure counts released location rows, not distinct companies or storefronts independently checked on publication day.

Publication's contacts table adds 27,835 published phone and website rows linked to the selected locations. A location may have more than one contact row. Joining that table can therefore multiply rows in a query; count distinct location IDs when reporting places. These contacts are unverified and may change. Their presence does not grant permission for marketing outreach.

Master adds 14,719 source_lineage rows and 53 historical_facts rows. The latter are matched, dated Oddity-owned references labeled as historical and unverified, not newly confirmed facts. Older listings that could not be confidently matched to the current selection were kept out of this customer release.

Choose the level of detail

Usage: Optical Goods Locations

Usage is the base location set. It can support a directory, map, regional comparison, or match against an existing business-place list. Keep location_id with imported rows so later updates and joins remain traceable. Review the public samples and field dictionary before using a category or status as a current business claim.

Publication: Optical Goods Contacts

Publication includes locations and the published contact table. Join contacts.location_id to locations.location_id to show available phone or website entries beside a place. Preserve the one-to-many relationship in an application rather than silently picking one contact or inflating the number of locations.

Master: Complete Optical Goods Directory

Master includes the lower-tier tables plus source lineage and historical context. Source lineage helps a data-review workflow identify the release source and its recorded vintage. Display historical facts with their status label and date context. Do not present an old matched fact as a current verification of the business.

Working with the package tables

A typical application starts with one locations row. Use its location_id to retrieve contact rows when the project has Publication, then source and historical rows when it has Master. The row counts describe different units: 14,719 locations, 27,835 published contact entries, 14,719 lineage records, and 53 historical facts. They should not be added together to produce a count of businesses.

For a state-level directory, filter the locations table by state_code, show a place name and recorded address, and optionally plot the supplied coordinates. A source point is not a guarantee of an active storefront or exact customer entrance. Add available contacts in a separate area, and leave a blank field blank rather than turning missing information into a claim that the business has no phone, site, or service.

For territory research, compare the selected places with your own verified list and document your matching rules. The release spans all 50 states, but its selection deliberately omits generic care centers and unverified categories. It does not establish a complete count of optical-goods sellers or a live inventory of eyewear products.

Questions this release can help answer

A directory builder can begin by grouping the selected locations by state and category. That gives a useful starting point for browsing optical retail and related places, provided the interface says the records are selected source locations rather than a verified census. A map can use the supplied coordinates to help people explore a region, while also offering the recorded address and a way to report a correction. The location ID gives each displayed result a dependable key for your own annotations.

A publisher comparing regions can ask how many released rows fall into each category or state. Count the base location rows for that question. If contacts have been joined, use distinct location IDs or aggregate contacts first, since one location can have multiple published contact entries. Otherwise a place with two contacts may appear to be two businesses. The same caution applies when Master joins lineage and historical detail to a place.

A team enriching its own customer or prospect file can compare names and addresses with this release, then review possible matches before updating its records. The source confidence field can help prioritize review, but it is not a substitute for confirming a match. Keep the original source value, your chosen match, and the reason for that choice. That separation matters when a location moves, changes its name, or appears in a later build.

What the categories do and do not say

The released categories distinguish eyewear stores, sunglasses stores, optical wholesalers, selected optometry places, and selected eye-care clinics with explicit optical-goods or contact-lens relevance. They describe how the source place was selected for this release. They do not certify an individual practitioner, prove an optical license, establish that a shop is open, or say which products are in stock. A project that needs any of those facts should check them independently.

The selection is intentionally narrower than every business that might have a connection to eyesight. That makes the file more focused for an optical-goods use case, but it also means an absent place should not be interpreted as closed or irrelevant. Review the sample and coverage description against your intended use. If the project needs a broader clinical or manufacturing population, this release alone may not answer that question.

Keeping the joins understandable

Begin with locations as the parent table. In Publication and Master, each contact refers back to a selected location through location_id. Master adds the lineage and historical tables on the same key. Build #164 ships these as separate tables because their rows mean different things. Keeping them separate lets an application display a place once while listing its available contacts and source context underneath.

If you export a flat file after joining, decide what one output row is meant to represent. For one row per place, aggregate related contacts or choose a documented display rule. For one row per contact, retain the parent location key and label the row as a contact record. A simple total of flattened rows is not the number of places. The package diagram above shows the relationship and the exact record counts so you can design that import before processing the full download.

Historical facts deserve a separate treatment. The 53 rows describe matched older Oddity context and remain explicitly historical and unverified. They may help investigate continuity, but they should not overwrite current-source fields automatically. A responsible interface can show the historical value and its status beside the current record, leaving the reader able to tell which observation came from which period.

Source date and responsible use

The current-source selection uses the documented September 23, 2026 Overture Places snapshot. Oddity's older first-party data was used only to enrich confidently matched currently selected locations. Any carried historical detail is labeled as such. Source names, categories, coordinates, status and contact values can change after the snapshot. Verify facts that matter to a purchasing, routing, licensing, or outreach decision against appropriate current sources.

The release includes CSV, JSON and SQLite formats, plus schema, samples, statistics, field definitions and source-rights documentation. Use the sample and public table statistics to check field types, missing values and join behavior before a full import. Preserve postal codes as text.

A practical import should preserve the original source fields and store local corrections separately with their own dates and evidence. That makes it possible to distinguish what build #164 supplied from a later verification or customer edit. When reporting coverage, state the selected population and source date rather than presenting the file as a live national census.

This announcement describes the October 14, 2026 release. Specific records and real-world conditions may change after that date.