4 ms·

"The testing and certification industry is odd. In theory, it exists to serve the public good and uphold consumer protection laws. On the other hand, its custom

"The testing and certification industry is odd. In theory, it exists to serve the public good and uphold consumer protection laws. On the other hand, its customers are in the private sector. Normally, market forces would dictate that by now it would be straightforward, fast, and affordable to get your product tested as frequently as desired. However, in reality, the labs are “too busy” to respond or reply very late and generally sound less than eager to work with you. Not to mention, the fees that they quote are rarely palatable to a bootstrapping startup. And yet, working with them is generally required to get your product to market." Market forces naturally determined this outcome though. If you're big companies you naturally want to limit the threat of new competition. Making compliance more costly achieves this.

eYrKEC2 2y ago
a.k.a. "regulatory capture" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- bildung 2y ago
  Enforcing basic device safety is hardly regulatory capture. I was part of preparing devices for CE tests, the requirements are essentially: nobody gets killed if the hardware is plugged in, you haven't accidently created an rf transmitter, and if you want to advertise IP67 it should survive being placed under water.
taneq 2y ago
Also, by definition, testing and certification companies have a captive market and will tend towards being lazy and exploitative. Any competition that springs up might temporarily improve things but then it too will get used to having a captive market and start sliding in the same direction.
tootie 2y ago
I used to work at a place that did some custom hardware development. Usually one-off or very limited run. Any time we fabricated a case and plugged in off-the-shelf devices, certification was not necessary. If we did custom wiring we got ETL certified. I didn't run the process myself but I recall it being easy and not very costly (few thousand?) It's a barrier but a pretty low one. Our electronic work was like advanced amateur level and it still passed with minimal modifications.
femto 2y ago
Big companies are often outside "the market", in that they have internal labs which are accredited to test their own products.
Aurornis 2y ago
> Market forces naturally determined this outcome though. If you're big companies you naturally want to limit the threat of new competition. Making compliance more costly achieves this. Compliance for basic products isn’t costly, though. It’s a rounding error relative to the wages you have to pay engineers and the costs involved in manufacturing the product.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  It is a high cost to certify when you're not paying yourself and you're the only person in your startup/hobby. Cost of DIY hardware design: 0 Cost of PCBA from China: rougly 100 to 2000 USD depending on complexity and nr of runs. Cost of DIY firmware and software: 0 Cost of external certification/compliance tests: 5000 to 25000 USD depending on the amount of runs it take to make it pass and what needs to be checked and what the industry is (battery management safety, medical, aerospace, FCC and/or CE, RED and/or others, etc). So yeah, an RnD department wouldn't really care, but "guy in mom's basement" would.
  - bildung 2y ago
    If the project is actually just a hobby, then CE and probably FCC testing is not needed. If the project is a startup, then the cost of labor is not zero, at least not if people are not deluding themselves (i.e. at least opportunity costs should be considered). Personally, as a consumer, I'm pretty happy that I can buy e.g. a wireless mouse or a bluetooth speaker and can reasonably assume that they actually work and aren't accidently jammed by some "startup"'s hardware.
    - crote 2y ago
      > If the project is actually just a hobby, then CE and probably FCC testing is not needed. That's the entire problem: According to the law, it is! There are extremely few exception, and the exceptions that do exist are essentially useless for hobbyists. Everyone selling small-scale prototypes on websites like Tindie is just rolling the dice and hope they don't get get a life-ruining fine. There are plenty of $5-$50 trinkets I'd like to design and sell as a hobby to fellow enthusiasts, due to their niche nature probably only a few dozen of each. But there's no way I can afford a $5000-$10.000 testing & certification fee on each one of those, and without that I'd be breaking the law.

eYrKEC2 2y ago

a.k.a. "regulatory capture" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

bildung 2y ago
Enforcing basic device safety is hardly regulatory capture. I was part of preparing devices for CE tests, the requirements are essentially: nobody gets killed if the hardware is plugged in, you haven't accidently created an rf transmitter, and if you want to advertise IP67 it should survive being placed under water.

taneq 2y ago

Also, by definition, testing and certification companies have a captive market and will tend towards being lazy and exploitative. Any competition that springs up might temporarily improve things but then it too will get used to having a captive market and start sliding in the same direction.

tootie 2y ago

I used to work at a place that did some custom hardware development. Usually one-off or very limited run. Any time we fabricated a case and plugged in off-the-shelf devices, certification was not necessary. If we did custom wiring we got ETL certified. I didn't run the process myself but I recall it being easy and not very costly (few thousand?) It's a barrier but a pretty low one. Our electronic work was like advanced amateur level and it still passed with minimal modifications.

femto 2y ago

Big companies are often outside "the market", in that they have internal labs which are accredited to test their own products.

Aurornis 2y ago

> Market forces naturally determined this outcome though. If you're big companies you naturally want to limit the threat of new competition. Making compliance more costly achieves this. Compliance for basic products isn’t costly, though. It’s a rounding error relative to the wages you have to pay engineers and the costs involved in manufacturing the product.

bboygravity 2y ago
It is a high cost to certify when you're not paying yourself and you're the only person in your startup/hobby. Cost of DIY hardware design: 0 Cost of PCBA from China: rougly 100 to 2000 USD depending on complexity and nr of runs. Cost of DIY firmware and software: 0 Cost of external certification/compliance tests: 5000 to 25000 USD depending on the amount of runs it take to make it pass and what needs to be checked and what the industry is (battery management safety, medical, aerospace, FCC and/or CE, RED and/or others, etc). So yeah, an RnD department wouldn't really care, but "guy in mom's basement" would.
- bildung 2y ago
  If the project is actually just a hobby, then CE and probably FCC testing is not needed. If the project is a startup, then the cost of labor is not zero, at least not if people are not deluding themselves (i.e. at least opportunity costs should be considered). Personally, as a consumer, I'm pretty happy that I can buy e.g. a wireless mouse or a bluetooth speaker and can reasonably assume that they actually work and aren't accidently jammed by some "startup"'s hardware.
  - crote 2y ago
    > If the project is actually just a hobby, then CE and probably FCC testing is not needed. That's the entire problem: According to the law, it is! There are extremely few exception, and the exceptions that do exist are essentially useless for hobbyists. Everyone selling small-scale prototypes on websites like Tindie is just rolling the dice and hope they don't get get a life-ruining fine. There are plenty of $5-$50 trinkets I'd like to design and sell as a hobby to fellow enthusiasts, due to their niche nature probably only a few dozen of each. But there's no way I can afford a $5000-$10.000 testing & certification fee on each one of those, and without that I'd be breaking the law.