The lumen to lux calculator is a very useful tool that can give you an idea of how powerful a light you need to work safely, or to fulfil legal requirements on a job site.

Lumen is the number one most marketed specification in the world of flashlights and headlamps, but it doesn’t give you the full picture of how a flashlight or headlamp performs in reality. A light can have an extreme amount of lumen, but if it doesn’t have professional optics the light is distributed over a massive area which reflects heavily in the light intensity (lux) and the light does not appear as bright as you would think.

As opposed to lumen, lux takes area into account and can therefore be used to describe light intensity. This is why lux will give you a better idea of how bright a light will appear in reality.

Lux might be an unfamiliar unit, so how many lux do you actually need? Within the EU you can follow the EN 12464-2 standard that states how many lux are required to perform different indoor and outdoor jobs. To give you an example; a typical office desk is required to have 500 lux worth of light. In the illustration below you can see how many lux are required for different jobs on a construction site.