What does UGR mean？

UGR stands for Unified Glare Rating (UGR), is a calculation method to evaluate the glare effect of indoor lighting environment, with URG value, lighting designers can use it to control the anti-glare level of lighting environment, to provide users with a visual comfort environment.

The UGR value is an important parameter of lamps, according to the European indoor lighting recommendation EN 12464-1 standard, the lower the UGR value means the better the visual comfort.

From:@Nelca Roco

How to calculate UGR？

The UGR value is calculated by a strict formula, the formula is shown below, but in practical applications are not so complex, lighting manufacturers will use professional equipment to test, without the need to calculate through this formula.

What is a UGR table?

The UGR value is used to evaluate the anti-glare effect of the user and the lighting position.

Lighting designers can choose and compare lamps through the UGR table method.

The manufacturer of lamps will use professional equipment for testing, and there is a UGR table in the IES report of lamps, which is defined in EN 12464-1 as a standard method for evaluating glare.

UGR table of general lamps, as shown in the following figure, we can clearly understand the UGR value under different circumstances, usually, we pay attention to the URG value when X=4H and Y=4H.

What UGR values are recommended?

The same luminaire, different power, different angles, different color temperatures, the UGR value will be different.

UGR values range from 28 (extremely high glare) to 10 (very low glare).

The European EN12464 standard also recommends UGR values for different application environments.

The glare effect is evaluated using a maximum of 3 steps, such as UGR<10, UGR<13, UGR<16, UGR<19, UGR<22, UGR<25, UGR<28, and UGR>28.

Here are the recommended UGR values for different applications:

For office lighting, UGR levels of 13 to 16 are ideal.

For industrial environments, UGR levels of 22 to 25 are ideal.

For store lighting, UGR levels of 16 to 19 are ideal.

For home lighting, UGR levels of 13 to 16 are ideal.

For bar lighting,UGR levels of 16 to 19 are ideal.

For shop lighting, UGR levels of 16 to 19 are ideal.

For restaurant lighting, UGR levels of 16 to 19 are ideal.

For spa lighting, UGR levels of 16 to 19 are ideal.

For school house lighting, UGR levels of 13 to 16 are ideal.

For hospital lighting, UGR levels of 10 to 16 are ideal.

When the UGR value is above 28, the glare is very serious, and the user will not feel visual comfort.

Choose the right URG lighting fixtures, you can get visual comfort, SUNME lighting is committed to the development of anti-glare lighting and visual comfort lighting products, including anti-glare track lights, anti-glare spotlights, anti-glare downlights and anti-glare linear lights, need to know more visual comfort lighting products please contact us.