An apparatus (200) for wetting and coating ophthalmic lenses having a tank with a cleaning or coating solution and a handling system (212) for sequentially moving a lens and the solution in relation to each other, to wet the lens. A master control module (232) is coupled to the handling system and configured execution a wetting profile. The wetting profile moves the lens to obtain a generally consistent lens surface wetting speed so that the lens coating has a more uniform thickness. According to a method, lenses are wetted in a liquid bath. The lens is placed in a handling system which moves the lens with respect to the bath according to a wetting profile. The wetting profile is based on the incremental vertical lens surface slope with respect to the surface of the solution.