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What is Lumen? How to Calculate Lumen?

When it comes to lighting, one of the first concepts that comes to mind is luminous flux. Luminous flux is the amount of light emitted from an illumination per unit time. Lumen represents the unit of luminous flux and its symbol is (lm). It is generally used in auto bulbs, but it is also used for other areas.

Lumens are often confused with watts. Lumen is related to the brightness of the bulb. Watts depends on the energy consumed by the bulb. The lumen value is taken into account to measure the brightness not only for the bulb, but also for all devices that emit light.

So what is a lumen and why is it important? How to calculate lumen? We will explain for you what you need to know about lumen. lümen nedir, neden önemlidir? Lümen hesabı nasıl yapılır? Lümen ile ilgili bilinmesi gerekenleri sizler için açıklayacağız.

Why is Lumen Important?

We have said that lumen is the total brightness emitted by a light source. So what does this mean? People usually choose according to their watt and lux values when buying light bulbs. However, the lumen value is ignored. If you are going to buy a bulb, be sure to pay attention to its brightness, namely the lumen value.

What is the Difference Between Lumens and Lux?

Lux is used to measure the amount of light emanating from a lighting device. It allows us to measure the total amount and intensity of light present on a surface. 

The difference between lumen and lux is that lux takes into account the area over which the lumen is emitted. A flux of 1000 lumens concentrated on an area of one square meter illuminates that square meter with a luminous power of 1000 Lux.

Relationship Between Lumens and Watts

The Watt (W) is an International Standard unit of electrical and mechanical power that measures the rate of energy transfer. It can be defined as one Joule per second. All bulbs have a wattage rating. 

The higher the wattage, the higher the electricity consumption or the amount of electricity used, so the higher the cost of running the light bulb.

When buying a light bulb or doing a job related to lighting, you should determine the balance between lumens and watts correctly. First of all, you should focus on achieving maximum brightness with minimum electricity consumption. That is, you should try to achieve maximum lumens with minimum wattage. 

For example, let's say we have two different light bulbs. Both have 1500 lumens. Here you should choose the one with the lower wattage.

Apart from that, there is variability between the lumen-watt values of each illumination. 

How to Calculate Lumen? 

We said that lumen is the unit measure of luminous flux. To calculate the lumen, you will need to multiply the square footage of the area you are in by your foot-candle requirement. For example, a 100 square feet living room that requires 10-20 feet of candles would need 1,000-2,000 lumens. You can also use the following formula to make this calculation.

lumens per square meter = total lumens divided by total square footage of area

In this article, we discussed what is lumen, how to calculate lumen, relations between lumen and lux and lumen and watt. You can visit our blog page to get different information about lighting.