Glare is the primary cause of eye strain and is caused by the reflection of light off from shiny surfaces. You can get rid of glare by filtering or shielding the light before it reaches your eyes, adjusting the surface reflecting the light or by controlling the light source. Significant causes of eye strain include staring at the same point for a long time such as on electronic devices, computer monitor and by also driving very long distances without taking a break. However, these environments can be adjusted to make it make more convenient for your eyes and reduce potential eyestrain.
What is glare?
Glare is discomfort or loss of visual performance generated by an intensity of light in the visual field that is usually greater than the intensity of light that is adapted to the eyes. Thus, glare occurs when an excessive amount of light enters your eye and interferes with the ability of the eye to manage it. Glare can be dangerous and distracting and occurs during the day and night in a variety of ways. Glare can be reflected or come directly from the source.
How does glare affect our eyes?
Glare is light that interferes with your vision when it enters into your eye. Glare may affect our eyes in a number of ways including making one feel uncomfortable and at times disabling our vision. It may cause you to feel uncomfortable when you try to view into the bright light forcing you to look away or squint. It may also cause disabling by affecting and hurting our vision. Glare causes light to scatter inside your eye leading to inability to see sharp images. Disabling glare leads to loss of contrast that is often not bright and is commonly dim. Glare may also affect our eyes by causing some common eye problems such as near-sightedness and far-sightedness.
What is anti-glare lighting fixture and why is it important?
Anti glare lighting fixtures are essential elements which are added to a lighting source to reduce eyestrain, glare and enhance the even distribution of light. Anti-glare lighting fixtures are extremely important since they serve the needs of the basic illumination and also serve the demands and needs of the people.
1. Home
Anti-glare lighting is important in our homes since it provides comfortable lighting and provides adequate visibility indoors during daytime and night time. They help individuals to perform activities conveniently at the comfort of their homes without any eye strain and reduced visibility.
2. Sports field & stadium
They are also important in the stadium or sports field since they reduce any discomfort glare which occurs when there is reduced visibility. This discomfort may cause the people in the sports field or stadium to have an instinctive reaction to look away. Discomfort glare is usually caused by high-output artificial sources of light mostly found in large areas such as stadiums or sports field.
3. Office, warehouse
Anti-glare lighting fixtures are also vital in reducing disability glare which may occur at the offices or warehouse. This normally happens when disability is reduced and does not occur without any reaction to look away. It happens for instance when the light from the lamp in the office is reflected off the computer screen and results in difficulty in reading the text.
4. Construction site
Anti-glare lighting fixtures are also significant in delivering sufficient light in the construction site whenever it’s required. They have essential optimal properties that prevent any eye strain or glare during construction. This reduces any accidents that may happen during construction and increase the productivity of the workers.
How to know if the lighting fixture is anti-glare
You can know if the lighting fixture is anti-glare is by checking whether the lighting fixture has micro prismatic technology. This is technology in the individual LEDs that has special diffusers that disperse light. This system produces homogeneous light that reduces any reflected or direct glare at optimal levels of contrast. Another feature that is vital to consider in the lighting fixture is the total internal reflection lenses. The use of a combination of TIR is very vital in generating a faceted lens or a parallel beam of light. This combination will enhance the light beam as intended. One other feature to check in the lighting fixture is the design and make of the secondary reflectors systems. This works when the primary reflector hides the view of the extreme light and directs the light into the secondary reflector which tends to evenly distribute the light.
How to reduce the glare of a light bulb
In general, the glare of light bulb increases with its brightness. If you want to reduce the glare of the light bulbs, we can shield or moving away the bulb, so the direct glare intensity can be lowered.
1. Buy frosted light bulb to reduce glare
When purchasing the light bulbs, we can select those with the frosted cover on the bulb wall, which is like what you can see on the fluorescent tube or bulb. This frosted layer can directly reduce the blinding lights emitting from the bulbs, then the light beam can also be diffused to provide broader coverage.
2. Staying away from light source
If you don’t want to buy the new light fixtures, we can still reduce the glare of light bulb by moving away from the light source, says installing the bulb on a higher ceiling. As the distance between the light bulb and observer is increased, the glare is also decreased accordingly. If you are planning to add the recessed lights in the living room and dining room, we can arrange the can light bulbs near the walls, so we can avoid looking at the glare easily.
3. Use Natural light
Natural daylight is always the best light source because it has maximum Color Rendering Index of 100, so we can see the true color of the objects. Especially in the overcast days, the clouds can act as the natural diffuser that gives the uniform and comfortable lighting. So, if you want to reduce the glare at home or in the office due to the light bulbs, we can pull the curtain back. However, the limitation is that not all house has the large windows to allow the sunlight come in.
4. Never looking at the parallel surface of light bulb
Another way to fix the glare issue of the light bulbs is that we can tilt the object a little bit to avoid looking at the surface that is totally parallel to the ceiling. This is because the glare is reflected to your eyes. That’s why we are seldom affected by the light bulb glare when watching the TV as the TV screen is perpendicular to the ceiling (light bulb surface). When reading the magazine, we can tilt it to prevent the reflection of glare.
Do LED light cause glare?
Glare refers to a reduction in visibility or difficulty seeing in the presence of light. Glare is caused indirectly or directly by artificial or natural light. Examples of glare include those caused by light reflected on a computer monitor, driving into the sun at sunset or sunrise and headlamps at night. Some LED lights have high-intensity brightness and do not produce much glare compared to those caused by similar conventional lights or halogen bulbs. Glare can be controlled or reduced by choosing a lighting design or product designed to direct intensive light when it’s required or needed.