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  • Feb 23, 2021

Do you need to meet the new DLC® Premium requirements?

Are you struggling to meet the Standard requirements? LexaLite® Reflexor® reflectors can help you achieve the glare control numbers you need!

Design Lights Consortium (DLC) evaluates light fixtures against increasingly stringent standards of performance. Most recently, DLC published v5.1, which not only addresses fixture efficacy, color issues, and zonal distribution but also puts a value on glare reduction. The metric used is the Unified Glare Rating (UGR). If you are trying to qualify for DLC Premium, DLC requires that you meet the glare criteria.

In A.L.P.’s testing, we compared a bare “UFO” highbay with the same fixture adding both our LENA 16™ and S16 reflectors. Using the prescribed criteria, this test yielded the following results: bare UFO =23.9, with LENA 16 = 13.1 and with S16 = 10.9, respectively. Highbays need to be less than 22 to qualify for DLC Premium.

What if you are just struggling to meet DLC Standard LPW for your highbay? DLC now provides a 10% allowance if your fixture meets the criteria for UGR. Adding a prismatic reflector reduces LPW by 3-7%, and you gain 10% with the allowance!

Even the extremely shallow and economical Lena 16 has a significant impact on UGR. Why? It’s just math. Glare is based on several factors, including high angle light, size of the source, and background luminance. Our Reflexors improve all of these factors.

  1. Reflexors reduce high angle light, providing a shielding angle relative to their depth.
  2. Bare UFOs are essentially flat luminous surfaces. Reflexors increase the luminous volume dramatically
  3. Reflexors provide uplight, which increases the background luminance.

These three factors improve visual comfort and make adding a LexaLite Reflexor an easy choice! Make a better highbay while meeting DLC requirements for Glare by using LexaLite Brand Reflexors.

See our entire offering at:


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  • Feb 2, 2021

Why you should care…about glare!

The importance of reflectors on LED highbays.

Do you ever wear a baseball cap or sunglasses? Ever use your car visor? These shielding actions reduce glare, or “bad” light that detracts from our ability to see. In a factory, warehouse, or retail facility, highbays are installed to light the space, but if the highbays are unshielded, glare interferes with what we can see. In commercial settings, glare is more than an inconvenience. This low visibility can hurt safety, productivity, and health.

Below are three photometry tests on the same highbay. The first with no reflector, the second with a shallow reflector, and the third with a deeper reflector. The glare reduction, while having little impact on lumen output, is dramatic.

Using a reflector, not only are high angle candela reduced, but they are also emitted over a much larger surface area, reducing high angle luminance by a hundredfold! If your facility has light-colored ceilings, installing reflectors has the added benefit of producing uplight. Uplight further reduces apparent brightness, eliminates the “cave” effect, and makes the space feel larger.

LexaLite® brand glare shields, from the economical and shallow LENA 16™ to the deep, high-performance S16, kill the glare without killing the light. Specify the LENA 16 or S16 by LexaLite on your next highbay project. We can customize the mounting mechanism to fit virtually any highbay.


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