Privacy Rating System

Privacy Rating Systems

The level of privacy that a piece of glass or specific glass design offers is important to know in order for homeowners to feel secure in their homes and know what the opacity of their purchase is. However, there is no industry standard for measuring privacy, which results in a subjective opacity scale that requires interpretation from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Beginning in 2023, ODL, Inc. has instituted a new privacy rating system that uses a standardized, repeatable test so that you know exactly what level of privacy you are getting in each ODL product. This new system helps professionals and homeowners understand more about the glass they purchase and takes the guesswork out of opacity and privacy.

An Objective Privacy Rating System

Opacity is an indicator of how much light passes through a material. For glass, a higher opacity will mean that less detail can be seen when you look through it, which translates to higher privacy when used in homes and buildings. ODL’s privacy rating system uses a process that tests the amount of light that is able to pass through the glass that we use in our stylized products. Using a tool called a spectrophotometer, every texture or pattern of a glass design is tested to see how much light passes through each particular part of the piece. The readings from the spectrophotometer are then used to calculate the exact privacy level for each glass design.

Four Distinct Privacy Levels

The new privacy rating system from ODL breaks each glass design and style into one of four categories: Low Privacy, Medium Privacy, High Privacy, and Maximum Privacy. This new system replaces the previous number scale and provides a precise and proven opacity level for every ODL design.

Privacy Rating System