Selecting the Proper Eyewear Lens Coating for your Environment
Selecting Eyewear based on Dirt, Temperature and Humidity
Working in harsh situations or with hazardous substances puts your team at risk of damaging their eyes. Having the correct eyewear based on their working environment is essential to their protection.
Fogged-up or scratched lenses can prevent clear vision through your safety eyewear. This can quickly become dangerous.
That’s why in this article we take you through the impact of the environment on your eyewear and how to select the eyewear lens coating for your situation.
How Humidity Affects Eyewear
Fogging occurs when tiny droplets of water condense on the lens. In humid conditions, it can affect both the inside and outside of the lens.
This is dependent on fluctuating temperatures within your environment. Fogging is also common when workers transition between extremes in temperature and humidity, like when moving from a refrigerated storage unit to a hot loading dock.
Fogging on lenses poses significant risks to worker safety. Blurred vision leaves them vulnerable to potential injury. Additionally, a worker may remove safety eyewear to wipe it dry or, worse, choose to leave it off to avoid obscured vision altogether. This leaves them with nothing to protect themselves from the risks of their environment.
How Dirt, Temperatures and Humidity Affect Eyewear Lens Coating
The different working conditions that your employees may operate in may requires special eyewear lens coatings.
uvex offers three types of supravision core coatings for your safety eyewear lenses. Each takes different environments into account. For example, whether the wearer works in hot or cold temperatures, with high or low humidity and dirty or clean settings.
uvex supravision excellence
- Excellent combination of different coatings on the same lens
- Unique dual-action anti-fog coating on the inside.
- Extremely scratch-resistant and chemical-resistant on the outside of the lens with non-stick, easy-to-clean technology
- Long-lasting anti-fog performance on the inside
- Anti-Fog score of up to 32 seconds on all models manufactured after A+A 2021. This is indicated on the lens during the transition period with a laser engraved triangle marking.
- Suitable for a wide range of workplaces
uvex supravision plus
- Long-lasting anti-fog performance and scratch resistance on both sides
- Anti-fog performance will not diminish even after repeated cleaning
- Suitable for environments where there is high humidity and/or frequent temperature fluctuations
uvex supravision sapphire
- Extremely scratch- and chemical-resistant on both sides
- Non-stick technology making eyewear easier to clean
- Suitable for dirty and/or dusty workplaces
How to Choose the Right Safety Eyewear Lens Coating
The wide variety of lens coatings available on the market can make selection difficult.
Using the graph below can help you determine which uvex supravision core coating is right for you.
There are three decisive parameters for choosing the right coating: prevailing temperature, humidity and level of contamination.
The uvex diagram features three axes, each representing one of the three decisive parameters. Use these three steps and this graph above to determine which kind of lens coatings are right for your environment.
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- Plot the temperature of your working environment using the horizontal axis, estimate the degree of dirt on the vertical axis and, finally, use the diagonal axis to plot the air humidity in percentage.
- Join the three points to form a triangle. The predominant colour in the triangle will define the recommended coating for your workplace.
- Should your triangle be made up equally of two colours, then it is recommended that you pick the coating with the best anti-fog performance.
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How to Keep your Employees Safe from Eye Injuries
Simply wearing safety eyewear does not guarantee protection against eye injuries. Especially if the eyewear coating is not correct for the environment in which it is being used.
Protect your workers from severe injuries by ensuring you select the appropriate eyewear with the correct coating that can protect against dirt, humidity, lighting, and temperature changes.