Previously, everything was limited to pen and paper. Back then, even before the invention of papers, people used to express or preserve things by sketching on rocks.
With the modernization of age, people started to turn towards the screen. Even classes nowadays days are taken on projectors instead of awhiteboard.
But, these heavy screen timings do not come up free of cost. Moreover, many of them demand our eye sights which creates concern like can projectors hurt eyes?
Yes and no at the same time! Projectors can hurt your eyes due to the radiation of IR, UV rays, and blue light when you look directly into the lens.
But, again, as a projector works by reflecting the image through a screen, they won’t harm you when you look at them directly because the radiation is decreased to a significant value when the image is reflected.
Keep reading to know all about the projectors and your questions regarding them until the end.
Do Projectors Emit Blue Light?
Everyone is aware that when you look at the computer for an extendedperiod, your eyes start to pain or strain a lot. It is caused due to the blue lights. Similarly, blue light is emitted from all sorts of screens that including your mobile phone, TV, and projectors, to be exact.
Blue Light is a particular sort of wavelength found in almost all types of visible lights, especially in natural sunlight. There is no evidencethat all kinds of wavelengths of blue lights are harmful to our health, but high-energy blue rays behave differently.
Such blue light can be found in 415-455 nm bands of visible light, which have all the tendency to damage your eyes. Damages caused by blue light are for the UV rays as blue light falls in the category of UV radiation.
And, all the projectors are equally responsible for the emission of such blue lights, but that doesn’t mean that you can conclude quickly. The blue light emitted by projector size is harmful if and only if you look directly at the projector lens.
Can Projectors Hurt Eyes?
We should first step with the right feet to understand this; we should first know how our eyes work and how the projector functions!
With that said, our eyes can be directly compared with the camera. Just as the light from an object needs to be reflected in the camera to capture the photo of that object, the same happens with our eyes.
You are aware of all the visible spectrum of light colours made when the light hits an object. That light then enters our eyes through the pupil. Our front portion of the eyes consists of the pupil, cornea, iris, and lens, the combination of all together assist the light in reaching the retina further.
Retina processes the lights with twocentral photoreceptors known as the rods and the cones. Then the light finally reaches the optical nerve, which is made up of millions of nerves bonded together. Then the light finally comesto the neocortex,where the other job is carried out by our brain, which does a lot of processing, and the result is the image that we receive.
Such images can be created through the light reflected by a projector. Coming towards the functionality of projectors, the first thing that comes to mind is the radiation.
Radiation can occur through severalsources who are. The most outstanding example is the sun. The sunlight radiates harmful UV and IR rays responsible for damaging our skin and various cells and resultsin sunburn. Not only that, but such radiation is also detrimentalto our eyes, and the biggest culprit for that is the projector.
So, the projector also radiates harmful IR and UV rays, but that doesn’t mean that you have put on your sunglasses before coming to your projector.
Projector lights are safer for your vision than screen lights or screen timing because of their functionality. In the first place, projectors work by reflecting the light they emit. Due to light reflection from the screens, the light gets weak due to diffusion and filtration.
And this, the light from the projector ends up being safe for your eyes.
It is seen from the report that eyes are protected by 60% in case of the reflected image from a projector grey-coloured screen. Using a laser projector instead of an ordinary one decreases protection by 35%.
And, for the possibility of natural vision at a standard projector lens, your eyes have only a safety probability of 5%.
Is looking into a projector terrible for your eyes?
By now, you have learned a lot about the projectors and the light emitted by them, and so the answer is known to you.Looking into a projector is only bad for your eyes when you stare at the lens directly.
But again, if it is done mistakenly and for a briefperiod, your eyes will strain for a moment, and you may see a bright spot in vision, but your body is pretty intelligent for recovery. Damage is only caused for extended periods, which is also not again applicable if you are watching the reflected images of the projector from a screen.
So, how is it possible that looking directly on the projector causes damage but watching reflected images wouldn’t do so? Well, you have also covered a bit to this point but below is the healthy description
The reflected light of the projector is good and bad simultaneously. The good thing is that your eyes get safe from the intenseharmful radiations,whereaswrongness leads to decreased image quality.
The screen absorbs a significant amount of the lights from the projector, which brings the value of UV, IR, and blue lights nearer to a negligible amount, thus saving your vision. But, it causes poor quality in the image for which the recommended screen color is grey. This is because grey absorbs less than black and more than white.
Also, the distance of the screen from the projector and your eyes from the net causes the light to filter and diffuse a lot which is not applicable for direct lights of projectors.
So, all these together don’t make a projector terrible for your eyes, depending on the circumstance.
How do projectors reduce eye strain?
Eye strainresults from blue light, which comes from any screen timing. This is the most common issue of this digital world when we spend most of our time infront of the screen.
But the good news about the projectors is that they reduce this value of blue light to such an extent that they become not much of a concern anymore.
As the amount of blue light is significantly controlled due to the image reflection process, thus eye strain is also reduced by the projectors.
Safety Precautions for Your Eyes When You Are Looking at Projectors
For the projectors in action, you don’t need to worry about your eye damage if everything is followed in the right way.But, if you are the one who goes through a lot of projector screen timing, below are some of the precautionary steps for your eyes-
- Watching your children and pets: Set your projector high enough so that children or pets don’t even accidentally look directly into it.
- Use according to the instruction: The manufacturer’s guide tells to use a bright screen to reflect the projector image, which is the intended way to use a projector.
- Protecting eyes while working on the projectors: If you remove the case of your projector lens for any repair purpose, then stay away from using it because the projector will produce a very bright light which can lead to eye damages.
- Glasses for blue lights: Blue lights produced by projectors are not a concern, but you can still use a light blue glass for double safety.
- Taking a break: If you spend more than 4 hours on the projector screen daily, your eyes may go through overexposure and, therefore, cause strain. The best way to deal with that is taking a break in between the sessions.
- Using laser projectors: Laser projectors offer better eye health concerns with their low-powered lighting and thus become superior toordinary projectors.
Projector vs TV: Consideration to Eye Health?
Well, projectors in cases are way better than the other sort of screen timing from sources like TV, computer, mobile, etc. It would help if you had the idea of indirect light vs direct light, which hasa significantimpact on your eye health.
Projectors are often very bad if we look at them directly and are not made. This is because projectors are designed to reflect the image,making them a source of indirect light good for our eye health.
On the other hand, TV is a source of direct light that contains various harmful radiations, including an extended amount of blue lights. Therefore, it is more extreme than indirect sunlight and thus not an eligible one in case of eye health consideration.
Did I damage my retina by looking at a “DJ” laser projector?
No, “DJ” laser projector lights are even lower at power than regular screen projectors in producing images. They have more visible light, which uses less than 5mW.
On the other hand, ordinary projectors use more than 6kW power, which is enough to damage your eyes when lookingat the lens directly.
In the case of both the laser projector and standard projector, any one of them would not damage your retina if used according to the manufacturer’s guide.
Relevant posts:
- Do Light Projectors Help Babies Sleep?
- How Far Should A Projector Be From The Screen? (For Maximum Safety)
Can Projectors Hurt Eyes? closing thoughts:
But again, as the blue lights from projectors are first reflected from a surface or screen and then coming towards your eyes, the effect of blue light becomes almost nearer to negligible.