EN.166 Standard

EN.166 is the European certification for personal eye protection. At Wiley X, we take great pride in EN.166 but often meet the question: What is EN166?

EN 166 standard eyewear

EN.166 is a particular safety norm. When a piece of eyewear is EN.166 certified it generally means that it is a piece of safety eyewear.

The correct term is actually EN.166 personal Eye Protection European Standard, but is normally referred to as EN.166 or EN.166. It is the core technical industrial safety norm in Europe for eye protection applying to all types of individual protection of the eye which protects from hazards likely to damage the eye, except for nuclear radiation, x-rays, laser emissions and infrared emitted by low temperature sources.

EN.166 is often the minimum required certification regarding eyewear in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

At Wiley X we are proud of the fact, that all our eyewear passes the EN.166 tests and all eyewear is EN.166 certified. That is a great advantage regarding safety in the armed forces and in industrial workplaces.

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Presciption models

Different types of EN.166

European certification for civilian eye protection have different categories. The important ones are:

EN.166S (Safety glasses):
Frame and lens must withstand the impact of a 22 mm steel ball weighing 43 grams dropped from 1,3 meters at a speed of 18 km/h. The lens must remain in the frame and is not to shatter. The frame must remain intact as well.

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EN.166S models

EN.166F (Safety glasses):
Frame and lens must withstand the impact of a 6 mm steel ball weighing 0,86 gram fired at 162 km/h. The lens must remain in the frame and is not to shatter. The frame must remain intact as well.

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EN.166F models

EN.166B (Safety goggles):
Frame and lens must withstand the impact of a 6 mm steel ball weighing 0,86 gram fired at 432 km/h. The lens must remain in the frame and is not to shatter. The frame must remain intact as well.

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EN.166B models

What does it take to be EN.166 certified?

The primary tests for EN.166 are:

Field of vision,
Resistance to ignition
Optical transmission and diffusion tests
Stability to heat
Robustness tests
Resistance to ageing
Resistance to UV
Resistance to corrosion

Wiley X have their own test lab, but our eyewear also get tested by a certified and unbiased lab to receive the EN.166 certification.

Lateral Protection

To test the eyewears performance you test the glasses on an Anderson head.

Must cover the EN.166 lateral protection points on the Anderson head form to meet the EN.166 F requirements. If the eyewear does not cover the standard points on the head form the eyewear can only be tested accordingly to EN.166 S.

This is also why all Wiley X Eyewear curves and why our worksight series all have a side shield.