You have heard of IP54. What is it?
To start off with this article properly is to know what the IP in IP54 means. IP means Ingress Protection and it is a standard defined by the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) to grade the resistance of an enclosure against the intrusion of solids or liquids. IP is commonly referred to as a rating or a code, so you could say that IP is a code or a rating used to identify the grade of an enclosure (e.g., a mobile device) against the Intrusion of dust or liquids. Solids in these context are dust, stone, and other particles. So when you see protection against solids, you can assume dust, stone or particles.
A IP code/rating like `IP54` commonly associated with mobile phones specifications means the such mobile phone have a protection rating of 5 against solid substances and a rating of 4 against liquid substances. A protection rating of 5 against solids is a beyond average rating for any phone but a protection rating of 4 against liquids is an average rating. Definitely not the best protection you could get.
How is this determined?
The first digit in an IP code (i.e., for solid protection) has a scale of 0 to 6 which means 0 for no protection against solids and 6 for no ingress of dust. While the second digit in an IP code (i.e., for liquid protection) has a scale of 0 to 9 which means 0 for no protection against liquid to 9 for protection against hot water from different angles. So from this understanding, an device with an `IP68` rating is definitely more protected against solids and liquids than a device with `IP54` rating. Quite simple right???
Conclusion
So when next you see a mobile phone with an IP54 rating, you now know that such a mobile phone has a near excellent protection rating against solids and average liquid protection rating while a mobile phone with an `IP68` rating has excellent protection against solids and a near excellent protection rating against liquids.
I hope you have learnt something from this article.
Thanks for reading. 🙂