# Lux vs Nits - My "lux" reader appears to be reading as nits. Please explain to me



## Damian5000 (May 26, 2016)

*Lux vs Nits - My "lux" reader appears to be reading as nits. Please explain to me*

Hello all. I have a lux meter which appears to be reading the same as nit ratings for various mobile displays. For example, a phone is advertised as having a display brightness of 500 nits. I check with my lux meter and it reads about 500. But according to what I've read, lux is 3.14x nits. Which if it's true, then the display is really 160 nits? Which I think can't be the case, as that's well below specs and quite dim, yet the display is very bright. This isn't just with a single mobile, but with many. 

Can anyone explain this in layman's terms what's up?


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## SemiMan (May 26, 2016)

*Re: Lux vs Nits - My "lux" reader appears to be reading as nits. Please explain to me*



Damian5000 said:


> Hello all. I have a lux meter which appears to be reading the same as nit ratings for various mobile displays. For example, a phone is advertised as having a display brightness of 500 nits. I check with my lux meter and it reads about 500. But according to what I've read, lux is 3.14x nits. Which if it's true, then the display is really 160 nits? Which I think can't be the case, as that's well below specs and quite dim, yet the display is very bright. This isn't just with a single mobile, but with many.
> 
> Can anyone explain this in layman's terms what's up?



You should know you can't believe everything you read on the internet and most stuff is posted by people far far from being experts in their field.

You cannot convert directly from lux to nits. That 3.14 makes an assumption that is just not true for most displays. Mobile displays concentrate their light into a narrow viewing window to maximize battery life. That makes that 3.14 conversion factor pretty much useless.


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## Damian5000 (May 27, 2016)

*Re: Lux vs Nits - My "lux" reader appears to be reading as nits. Please explain to me*



SemiMan said:


> You should know you can't believe everything you read on the internet and most stuff is posted by people far far from being experts in their field.
> 
> You cannot convert directly from lux to nits. That 3.14 makes an assumption that is just not true for most displays. Mobile displays concentrate their light into a narrow viewing window to maximize battery life. That makes that 3.14 conversion factor pretty much useless.


The sensor is directly up against the display reading it straight on. 

Beyond that, why is the lux meter giving readings that correlate with manufacturer's nit specs?


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