IP68 Explained: Easy Guide to Water & Dust Protection

Products often boast waterproof, dustproof, or IP68 ratings—but what do they really mean? Let’s break it down with easy-to-understand charts!

Dust and Water Resistance Testing
For products that require dust and water resistance testing, the international standard is IEC/EN 60529. This standard provides specific test equipment, methods, duration, and compliance criteria for preventing the ingress of solid objects—such as hands, fingers, tools, wires, or even dust and liquids—into the product.

The full name of the standard is Degrees of protection provided by enclosure (IP code), which refers to the protection level offered by a product's outer casing. IP is an abbreviation for International Protection, an internationally recognized standard.Generally, most product standards (IEC or EN) will reference the conditions and criteria of IEC/EN 60529 when defining their dust and water resistance requirements, tailoring them to meet the needs of specific products. Products that need dust and water resistance testing are often used outdoors. This includes protective casings, equipment boxes, lighting fixtures, wireless access points, bathroom products, and IT devices.

The IP rating is commonly represented as IPxx, where the two numbers have different meanings and represent the level of protection a product can withstand. For example, a flagship smartphone might claim to have an IP68 rating.

 

An IP rating consists of IP followed by two digits. The first digit indicates protection against solid particles, and the second digit indicates protection against liquid ingress. An optional letter can be added after the digits to denote other protection capabilities.

IPxx Dust and Water Resistance Rating — Dust Protection (Meaning of the first x digit)
The first digit indicates the level of protection that the product's enclosure provides against the ingress of foreign solid objects, which could harm the internal components (such as electronic or mechanical parts).

IPxx Dust and Water Resistance Rating — Water Resistance (Meaning of the second x digit)

The second digit represents the degree of protection the equipment's enclosure provides against the ingress of water.

Additional Letters
You can add an extra letter to the standard to indicate protection from harmful objects in environments accessible to people.

To indicate a device's protection information: