What would the best equipment be without the right ski goggles? Ski and snowboard goggles fulfill many functions. They support their wearer in terms of visibility and comfort and are therefore essential for every skiingday. Nevertheless, it can sometimes be difficult to get familiar with the many technical terms related to the functions of ski goggles. The NAKED Optics lens guide will help you find your way around better when buying your new ski goggles .
VLT - Ski goggles and light transmission
When looking for new ski goggles, you have certainly come across terms such as “lens categories”, “translucency” and “ski goggles VLT”. All this is related to the different tints and colors of the different ski and snowboard goggles. These ensure that different amounts of light fall through the lenses into the eyes. This is given as a percentage. 100% stands for complete light transmission, as is the case with clear lenses. In order to be able to find your way around more easily when buying ski and snowboard goggles, the VLT of ski goggles and their lenses is divided into five different categories (CAT.). These indicate for which weather conditions and thus which lighting conditions a ski goggle lens is suitable. Here you will find a table of the different categories of lenses and the visibility conditions they are suitable for:
|
Light Transmission (VLT) |
Category (CAT.) |
conditions |
Suitable for |
|
100-81% |
CAT. 0 |
Very little light |
Night skiing |
|
80-44% |
CAT. 1 |
Little light and bad conditions |
Snowfall and fog |
|
43-19% |
CAT.2 |
Variable to normal conditions |
Cloudy and partly sunny weather |
|
19-9% |
CAT. 3 |
Normal to fair conditions |
Bright daylight |
|
8-3% |
CAT. 4 |
Very nice conditions |
Bright sunshine / glaciers |
Different VLT - ski goggles with interchangeable lenses
So that you don't need new ski goggles for every weathercondition, there are more and more goggles with interchangeable lenses. Depending on the weather, you can switch between lenses with different VLT values. The NAKED Optics ski goggle models The STORM, The TROOP EVO, The FORCE EVO and The NOVA have a SnapTech magnet changing system, which makes changing the lenses particularly easy.
Credits: Florian Dorn