The Value Of Certification And Pre-Compliance

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Getting your product certified or compliance tested is an expensive and time-consuming process. By purchasing a certified and pre-compliance tested product, you may skip the hassle and prioritise more important activities for your business!

Radiocrafts’ products are certified or pre-compliance tested with respect to local radio regulations for operation all around the globe, ranging from our very first product line, RC232, which is still popular today due to its ease of use and high performance by simplicity, all the way to our newest product lines, RIIoT™ (Radiocrafts Industrial IoT), the efficient wireless star IIoT access, and RIIM™ (Radiocrafts Industrial IP Mesh), the easy to use wireless IIoT access. But why is certification and pre-compliance testing so valuable?

Getting your product certified or compliance tested is an expensive and time-consuming process which is why we want to express the value of buying a certified or pre-compliance tested product. By getting such a product you may skip these tedious and distracting steps and prioritise more important activities for your business!

There are 2 main regimes we will be focusing on which are:

  • FCC (Federal Communications Commission) certification – The FCC regulates the use of wireless spectrum in the United States and certify devices even used in license free bands
  • CE (European Conformity) compliance – Required for products that are marketed and sold in European (EU and EEA) countries.

Process and cost of getting your product FCC certified:

An FCC approval is required for all radio devices used in the United States. The process to certify a product is as follows:

  1. The device manufacturer has to authorize the test lab to apply for an FFC Grantee Code.
  2. FCC will then send the Grantee Code to the device manufacturer.
  3. The device manufacturer must then submit their device to an accredited test lab for evaluation.
  4. The test lab will perform a series of tests on the device using appropriate standards (typically showing compliance with CFR part 15).
  5. Once the testing is successful, the test lab will then create a detailed test report and submit it to the FCC.
  6. FCC with then respond between 8-12 weeks for certification requests.

As you can see, this process of certifying your product can take more than 3 months. Additionally, to apply for certification you need to provide a number of documents including:

  • Test setup photos
  • Test report
  • User manuals
  • Block diagrams
  • Schematic diagrams
  • Description of the operation of the device
  • And more.

 

The FCC approval costs for wireless devices starts from around 3,000 to 5,000 US dollars. For more complex wireless devices this number is generally higher and can reach a cost of up to 10,000 US dollars for multi-channel transmitters. Also, if you have several different devices the cost will multiply, even if the same wireless protocol is used.

What is then a better solution? The solution is to use one of the pre-certified radio modules from Radiocrafts. The FCC regulations allows for certification of a shielded RF module, together with specific antenna types. The modules that have already been certified, can be integrated into different type of devices without any re-certification. Simply follow the User Manual for the module, and use the FCC identifier that was granted to Radiocrafts. It is an easy and low-cost solution to get your product fast on the market!

Process and cost of getting a CE marking on your product:

The CE mark ensures that the product conforms with the requirements of European Commission directives, in particular the RED directive for radio equipment. There are many processes to get a CE marking on your product and this is dependent on what kind of company you are (manufacturer, distributor, importer, etc.) You can see the different requirements for different company types here. For sake of simplicity, we will use a manufacturing company as an example:

  1. The first step is to identify the EU requirements for your product. The EU-wide requirements are separated into directives that cover different products. These directives lay down the essential requirements that your product must fulfil. To identify the EU requirements that are required for your product, please click here.
  2. Check whether your product meets the specific requirements. This is completely and solely up to you to figure out.
  3. Check whether your product needs to be tested by a Notified Body. This Notified Body will perform a conformity assessment to ensure that the technical documentation you have provided sufficiently supports product compliance.
  4. If your product does not need to be checked by a Notified Body then it is solely up to you assess if your product complies with the EU regulations.
  5. Compile your technical documentation. This documentation needs to include all information which prove that your product is compliant with the technical requirements.
  6. Attach the CE marking on your product. The marking must be visible and legible. If you had to use a Notified Body to assess your product, then the identification number of the Notified Body must be included on the product. You must then draft and sign an EU declaration of conformity stating that your product meets all legal requirements.

The cost of getting a CE certified product depends on many factors such as if you used a Notified Body for the assessment of your product, the complexity of your product, specific tests that you needed to carry out, and more. The CE marking itself does not cost anything, but if you get a Notified Body to assist you, this can have a cost range of 5,000 USD to 8,000 USD. Additionally, a lab test can have a cost range of 300 USD to 4,000 USD depending on the complexity of the test results and number of products you are testing. It takes around 6-8 weeks to get a single product CE certified.

Although you cannot avoid all the compliance assessment or tests that may apply for your specific type of product, Radiocrafts make the process much easier and reduce the risk of non-compliance by providing modules that are pre-compliance tested. Radiocrafts issue a DoC (Declaration of Conformity) which states that the radio module has been tested using the relevant standards for showing compliance with European radio regulations. In most cases this means you do not need to do tests of the radio again. Tests which would require costly instrumentation or expensive hours in a test laboratory. Therefore, consider purchasing pre-certified products to save money and to allocate time to more important business endeavors.