So in one way or another, you must have heard of the question about IP rating or what is ingress protection in electrical and that’s basically the reason you’re here. in the first place probably now IP rating found mostly in electrical devices such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, wearables like smart watches, speakers, and even Ear pods, or buds. anyways today I’ll try to explain what IP rating is and how it works and also the difference between water-resistant and waterproof.

What is Ingress Protection?

Before jumping to explain about what is ip Rating means, I’m going to start with the meaning of IP rating. The word IP is obviously an acronym and it stands for ingress protection. The whole statement IP rating refers to the level or degree of protection provided by an enclosure on electronic stuff against dust/some small particles or water. That may cause damage if they come into contact with the electronic components.

Now we all know that most electronic devices will not work well or may even spoil completely after getting into contact with water or dust. So companies have to find a way to try to protect our devices from such small inconveniences. For example, with your phone, you move with it everywhere and it may fall down in the swimming pool, dust particles may enter through the pots, it may get rained on. So it needs some kind of protection to avoid spoiling after going through such stuff.

Understanding the Ingress protection Rating chart:

Now let’s understand the number or ingress protection rating chart. When you look at IP ratings they have sort of numbers at the end. For example we have ip67, ip53, or ip68, and more. so if you remember earlier I said that the protection is against moisture or water and dust particles. So the first number from the left represents the dust or small solids and the last number represents water or moisture. For an example, in the ip67 rating, the 6 represents the rating against dust and the 7 represents the rating against water. now there’s a whole ip Rating chart that shows the levels that each number represents.

Dust and Solid particles:

Starting with the dust and solid particles. The numbers are from one to six, each number has its own level of protection and as you can see on the chart. number one is protection against a solid object that is greater than 50 millimetres in diameter. so it’s light solids such as your hand and of course, it can’t protect against the liberate access because if you want to get it you can get it. number two is protection against solid objects greater than 12.5 millimetres such as your finger and most of the time its accidental touches.

Number three is protection against solid objects greater than 2.5 millimetres such as tools and it goes on and on up to number six with number six it suddenly does tight and it’s full protection against tiny dust and solid particles. you can check the chart to check out for numbers four and five but I’m pretty sure you get the point.

Water and moisture:

Now on to the water or moisture protection part. This goes from number one all the way to number nine. With number one is protection against droplets falling vertically. And number two is protection against water droplets falling with the enclosure tilted up to 15 degrees. Number three is against those droplets falling from sprays of water of up to 60 degrees and so on. And with number nine its protection is against the effects of high pressures and high-temperature jets or moisture and it’s mostly used in vehicles. You can also check the chart to check the other various moisture ratings.

Letter X meaning of IP Rating:

You may also see some rating with the letter x on it such as ipx6 or ipx8 and whatever. And the x generally means that it doesn’t have any protection rating. For example, with the ipx5 rating there is no protection against any dust or solid particles but it has the moisture protection of level 5. If the last number is x2 then it can’t protect against any level of moisture. So there is not an ipxx rating because it’s just not sensible to give something an IP rating because it’s not water and dust proof or water and dust resistance.

Difference between waterproof and water-resistance

Talking about IP rating and waterproofing. This brings me to my next point the difference between waterproofing and water resistance. People most of the time mix up these things or may think that they are the same but they aren’t. So an object being water-resistant means it can resist the penetration of water or moisture but up to a certain level. But waterproof means it’s fully impermeable to water no matter how hard or how long you try. A waterproof material won’t be affected by water.

So all IP ratings against water are water-resistant matters and that’s why it has a maximum level like 30 minutes underwater or one meter underwater. It has like a limit it’s not forever. now one thing to note is that these ratings are mostly for fresh water and may not work in the sea so of course, they will be resistant to the water but after some time since it’s salty water, other things such as rust may start to affect the internals because the basics of chemistry that salt water is an electrolyte and contains free irons that basically speeds up the rusting process or even the saltwater it can also corrode the internals of your device so you just avoid it in the sea or ocean.

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Now in the smartphone world, we have seen this IP rating in mostly flagships and higher-level mid-range phones. I’d like to ask if you think that it’s worth it for even entry-level budget devices to be given IP ratings and also is IP rating one of the factors you choose when you want to get a new smartphone you can leave your answers at the comment section down below.