4 ms·

I'd say it's a mixed bag of safety, liability, and legality that will vary widely between products. Some quick examples: Safety: if you sell an appliance that

by bsmith 12y ago

I'd say it's a mixed bag of safety, liability, and legality that will vary widely between products. Some quick examples: Safety: if you sell an appliance that operates on mains (hazardous) voltage, there are standards in place (UL, etc.) you should be following in order to prove your design doesn't allow that high voltage to easily come in contact with a person. So for your Arduino thing, as long as the power adapter that you source is already certified, you are probably good to go. Liability: Closely related to above; what if your device is involved in a fire? There are flammability requirements for devices for different environments, and certification will help you prove you did everything you were supposed to in order to prevent your device from starting or propagating a fire. Again, not as big of an issue once the voltage is stepped down to <= 5 VDC. Legality: mainly, FCC (in the USA) comes to mind. It's actually illegal to sell radio devices using certain frequencies unless they are tested and approved by the FCC. You can buy an FCC-certified radio modem or module to get by this one quite a bit easier. Medical devices are an entirely different can of worms (FDA, etc.). So, it really depends on the use case for your product. What are you planning to build?

HillRat 12y ago
Even non-transmitting devices can be "unintentional radiators" as per the FCC. Using pre-licensed components doesn't exempt you from testing and appropriate certification -- you're on the hook for the entire product. Furthermore, submodules might only be certified for certain configurations which your device may violate, and thus you would require certification. Basically, there are three kinds of procedures you need to worry about: verification (the least intrusive, requires that the manufacturer do tests but does not require approval); declaration of conformity (requires a certified test lab certify the product); and certification (the "FCC Code" -- requires an application to the FCC or a TCB, including technical specs and official test results). The only way to be sure is to have engineers on staff or on contract with experience in licensing issues. By the way, if you're selling a kit product, you may be exempt from much of the approval process, which may influence your decision.
jkestner 12y ago
Not that I've gone this way, but I'm starting to believe that certifications are like patents - not worth the money if you're very small. The FCC fines are huge, but are they focused on the little guy? 3D Robotics seems to walk this line, by a talk I saw recently. I'd consider waiting until you know there's demand past Kickstarter, at least. I see some worry about CE and the individual countries like Japan and ANZ, when global domination is a long ways off. You're probably going to have to iterate again anyway in order to get retail-ready margins. A clue that it matters little is that when they need to put your unique product in a government-designated category, it's going to be something like "Computer Peripheral" or "Measuring Device". There is a lot of grey area. Hell, CE lets you self-certify. Another debatable early-stage expense is liability insurance. Technically most distributors require it, including Amazon. But it can be nearly impossible to get for hardware with no track record, never mind what it costs. The best option is sometimes to let your LLC do its job and go bankrupt if someone wants a lot of money.
- mkesper 12y ago
  Does not sound like a terrific strategy to me. It probably will become very hard to bolt the requirements on after you've finished your product. And for people here in Germany, the pebble missing CE seals was a great deal as the shipped products got lost in customs. Pretty easy to piss off your backers like that.
  - jkestner 12y ago
    I'm not saying to ignore the radio requirements at all. If you're diligent, make liberal use of reference designs, etc. your design will pass. I (and Chris Anderson) just question whether the time and expense of getting certifications that no one will notice is the right place for a startup to spend its resources. Fair game, when so many skip arguably more important things like security. I agree on Pebble - the volume they were sending through, and a little inexperience with customs, raised flags that were hard to put down. But by all means, when you've raised $10mil, get your certs. I'm telling the Kickstarters who barely raised enough to execute their hardware, and then think that blowing $20K in order to cross all the t's for international markets, is not putting the cert before the horse.

by bsmith 12y ago

HillRat 12y ago

Even non-transmitting devices can be "unintentional radiators" as per the FCC. Using pre-licensed components doesn't exempt you from testing and appropriate certification -- you're on the hook for the entire product. Furthermore, submodules might only be certified for certain configurations which your device may violate, and thus you would require certification. Basically, there are three kinds of procedures you need to worry about: verification (the least intrusive, requires that the manufacturer do tests but does not require approval); declaration of conformity (requires a certified test lab certify the product); and certification (the "FCC Code" -- requires an application to the FCC or a TCB, including technical specs and official test results). The only way to be sure is to have engineers on staff or on contract with experience in licensing issues. By the way, if you're selling a kit product, you may be exempt from much of the approval process, which may influence your decision.

jkestner 12y ago

Not that I've gone this way, but I'm starting to believe that certifications are like patents - not worth the money if you're very small. The FCC fines are huge, but are they focused on the little guy? 3D Robotics seems to walk this line, by a talk I saw recently. I'd consider waiting until you know there's demand past Kickstarter, at least. I see some worry about CE and the individual countries like Japan and ANZ, when global domination is a long ways off. You're probably going to have to iterate again anyway in order to get retail-ready margins. A clue that it matters little is that when they need to put your unique product in a government-designated category, it's going to be something like "Computer Peripheral" or "Measuring Device". There is a lot of grey area. Hell, CE lets you self-certify. Another debatable early-stage expense is liability insurance. Technically most distributors require it, including Amazon. But it can be nearly impossible to get for hardware with no track record, never mind what it costs. The best option is sometimes to let your LLC do its job and go bankrupt if someone wants a lot of money.

mkesper 12y ago
Does not sound like a terrific strategy to me. It probably will become very hard to bolt the requirements on after you've finished your product. And for people here in Germany, the pebble missing CE seals was a great deal as the shipped products got lost in customs. Pretty easy to piss off your backers like that.
- jkestner 12y ago
  I'm not saying to ignore the radio requirements at all. If you're diligent, make liberal use of reference designs, etc. your design will pass. I (and Chris Anderson) just question whether the time and expense of getting certifications that no one will notice is the right place for a startup to spend its resources. Fair game, when so many skip arguably more important things like security. I agree on Pebble - the volume they were sending through, and a little inexperience with customs, raised flags that were hard to put down. But by all means, when you've raised $10mil, get your certs. I'm telling the Kickstarters who barely raised enough to execute their hardware, and then think that blowing $20K in order to cross all the t's for international markets, is not putting the cert before the horse.