The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) has released a new standard called “IEEE Std 1789-2015” in which it recommends certain flicker-levels for LED lighting.
 

Flickering in SSL (solid state lighting) such as LED has long be considered to be disturbing if not unhealthful to human beings, causing headaches and other indispositions.

 

 

With the use of high-frequency technology flickering can be eliminated from LED-products, but such preparations require an addition of components and therefore regularly an enlargement of the LED-driver which can be difficult in smaller LED-lamps such as MR16 or GU10-products. 
 

Whilst the LED-industry praises the possibilities of “flicker-free dimming”, it also has to be said that dimmable LEDs are regularly flicker-free at full light output, whilst there is some flickering with dimmers like TRIAC during the dimming process. 
 

The newly released IEEE-standard is based on the fact that different frequencies of a light source emit different percentages of flickering. The IEEE has consequently determined which percentage of flickering of a light source can be regarded as non-harmful respectively harmful to human beings and released a graph which shows safe and low-risk regions for flickering.
 

Although discussed controversial, the new standard is the first one to deal with the flicker-issue in LED in a standardized way. New or improved standards will certainly come up soon and spark more discussion about this issue.sm.