Should I buy an infrared sauna because of a claimed high “emissivity”?
Some of the competitors of Clearlight Infrared Saunas® have started promoting a “high emissivity”. With a high emissivity criterion, they denote a 90% or 95%+ emissivity as the benchmark for good infrared sauna heater panels.
Before criticising that claim, let’s simplify what that statement means:
What Is Emissivity?
“Emissivity” is a physics concept. Higher emissivity rates entail that more energy is turned into infrared that is emitted as photons.
Those photons are emitted as infrared by the heater panels in your infrared sauna.
With high emissivity, less energy will be lost because of the vibration of atoms along with the electric cables.
If that sounds abstract, let’s simplify it even further:
Higher emissivity ensures that electric energy from your power grid is more efficiently turned into infrared, without heat losses around the electricity cable.
Low emissivity infrared panels, on the contrary, thus ensure that your sauna runs at a high Wattage and generates less infrared.
In that case, you’ll get less “bang for your buck”.