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I don't think that's right. If I hold this LED right in front of my eye the retina will be exposed to the entire 850 Lumen. Sunlight with an illuminance of 120.000 Lux on the other hand yields around 12 Lumen on the retina, assuming a surface of 1 cm². It's the relative distance to the light source that makes this so dangerous.


Even if you only let a pinhole of sunlight in, enough to illuminate a surface to 120 instead of 120k, it will burn your retina.

Normal retinal spot burns are not about total light coming into your eye. They're about incoming light per solid angle. A light that is bright enough per area is dangerous at any distance, until it's so so far away it looks like a single point.

I'm sure that there's some level at which total light is damaging, even if there are no super bright spots. But that level is going to be significantly higher than 120k. It's maybe a range this LED can reach, maybe not.




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