# Light flicker meter

> Measures modulation depth and frequency of a light source, the optical counterpart to dirty-electricity measurements and the metric behind LED comfort complaints.

- Canonical URL: https://emfbase.com/meters/flicker-meter
- Collection: Instruments
- Record id: `meters:flicker-meter`
- Status: verified
- Last verified: 2026-08-12
- JSON: https://emfbase.com/api/meters/flicker-meter
- Also known as: flicker tester, percent flicker meter

## Key values

- **Band covered:** optical modulation
- **Quantities measured:** frequency
- **Typical price:** $40–$600

## Detects

- Percent flicker and flicker index of lamps and screens
- Driver quality differences between lamps

## Cannot detect

- Any electromagnetic field quantity — this measures light, not EMF

## What to insist on

- Reports percent flicker and frequency, not a pass/fail light
- Sample rate high enough for kilohertz PWM dimming

## Related records

- [LED lamps and low-cost drivers](https://emfbase.com/emitters/led-lighting): The switch-mode driver inside a cheap LED lamp can put measurable high-frequency harmonics on the circuit and produce visible flicker; well-filtered drivers do neither.

## Sources

- `sbm-2024` Institut für Baubiologie + Nachhaltigkeit (IBN) (2024). *Building Biology Evaluation Guidelines for Sleeping Areas (SBM-2024)*. https://buildingbiology.com/site/downloads/SBM-2024_EVALUATION_GUIDELINES_EN.pdf — ngo, link checked 2026-08-12

Data licence: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Dataset version 2026.08.1. Retrieved from EMFBase, https://emfbase.com.

This record is reference data, not medical or legal advice. Regulatory limits, scientific guidelines and precautionary values are labelled separately and answer different questions.