Ergonomics promotes the physical and mental health of a worker. Accordingly, the rules of a workplace also include ergonomic lighting. However, if you want to illuminate an office workplace ergonomically, you have to consider more than just sufficient light. This guide shows you how the right ergonomic lighting can promote concentration and prevent early fatigue.
Freedom from glare: the unified glare rating
The purpose of ergonomics is to make work easier for the employee: Disturbing factors that endanger the health of the employee should be reduced to a minimum. In this how-to you will learn how to set up an office workplace ergonomically.Dazzling lights can severely impair the ergonomics of a workplace. This is where the UGR (Unified Glare Rating) value comes into play: It describes the value of a lighting system and its glare in relation to an observer’s position. The European recommendations for interior lighting according to DIN EN 12464-1 specify a UGR value of 10-30 as a benchmark. It contains values for many room types and is a very good starting point for planning room lighting.
For office work, an UGR of less than 19 is recommended. For industrial work, it should be less than 25 – for traffic areas and corridors it should be less than 28. However, the UGR value is influenced by how the light sources are distributed in the room, as well as by your seating position and viewing direction. In addition, depending on their nature, surfaces can reflect and thus further distort the UGR value for the room.
The UGR value is particularly useful for ceiling lighting, because it is almost impossible to correct any glare afterwards. LED panels such as the ELED 600109 from ENOVALUX with a UGR value of 19 offer pleasant lighting thanks to their anti-glare properties. For example, they can easily be integrated into a suspended ceiling. The pendant light LDV P 075144620 from LEDVANCE offers even lighting and low glare thanks to its sophisticated design: 70 percent of the light is emitted as direct light onto the ceiling and 30 percent as diffuse light downwards.
White is not always white: lighting & color temperature
When it comes to color temperature, DIN EN 12464 does not specify any specifications. However, it is good to know that the Kelvin specification for light sources always refers to the color temperature. Lamps with the colors warm white ( 5,300 K) are often described. These light colors have different effects on people. Candlelight is warm and yellowish at 1,500 K, and a slightly overcast sky is slightly bluish at 5,300 K. Warm light has a more cozy and calming effect, while cold light has a stimulating effect. With this knowledge, premature tiredness can be counteracted by the right lighting.Why the color temperature of light has such an influence on us can be explained by the connection between the position of the sun and our biorhythm: at midday, blue sky and sunlight together result in a light mixture with a color temperature of approx. 10,000 Kelvin. At sunset it is only 3,000 Kelvin. The higher the Kelvin number, the cooler the light. Cool light tells our body that it’s broad daylight – time for work and concentration.
With the FeinTech SKT TLT00320 LED desk lamp, you can set the brightness and color temperature manually. Five brightness levels with color temperatures between 3000K and 6000K enable concentrated work or a pleasant ambience. Due to the wide illumination area, a workplace can also be put in the right light with two monitors.
Avoid direct glare with the minimum shielding angle
Another factor for ergonomic lighting that is covered by DIN EN 12464 is the minimum shielding angle. This describes the minimum size of the angle between the viewing direction and the luminous parts of a lamp on a horizontal plane. However, it does not apply to luminaires in the upper half of the room or those mounted below the eye line. The value changes depending on the luminance and lamp type.Basically, having a light source directly in your field of vision can be uncomfortable. Having to consistently ignore a bright point of light in the field of vision is exhausting for the human eye and therefore also for the brain. If you want to protect your eyes, a homogeneous illumination of your workplace is therefore important. The larger the beam angle and secondary reflection from other objects, such as walls, the easier it is for the eye to process the light.
If no ceiling lamp can be mounted, a desk lamp often does not help either. In such cases, floor lamps like V-TAC’s VT-8523 are a good option. It is dimmable and can therefore be optimally adjusted to the individual room conditions.
Conclusion
One thing is certain: hardly any workplace is like the other. Even peculiarities such as the natural incidence of light lead to major differences. It is therefore difficult to give recommendations that serve as a universal solution. However, with knowledge of the UGR value, color temperature and minimum shielding angle, you are well prepared to let your own workplace shine brightly – and ergonomically.
Images: Adobe Stock and LEDVANCE
