nRF52 Bluetooth Certification & Declaration Clarification

[Jev]

Hi,

I am currently working on the project that involves Pre-certified Bluetooth Module (SG Wireless SGW1110 CE & FCC certified, based on Nordic Semiconductor nRF52480). We are using it to transfer the data from the sensor to the mobile device (S140 ble_uart_app). We are a bit confused at the minute and searching for a piece of advice. So talking about compliance and declaration, besides the standard compliance EMI/EMC (or even self-certification if I got it right) and (FCC & CE that already certified by the module manufacturer), we should declare it with SIG before introducing our product to the market. Am I correct? So based on the above few questions that we would like to clarify:

1. If we decide to go to the market and sell our product, what it will cost to us? Is it just Declaration fee which is $4000 (Associate) or $8000 (Adopter, in our case)? Is it applied per each product? Will it involve any other fees e.g. testing and etc.?

2. What is the process of declaration/qualification? Is it similar to compliance testing and will involve the physical test on the end product? Incl. Hardware & Software?

3. Do we need to declare the product if we are going the B2B route and will sell the technology, but not the product as itself. E.g. the company I am working at is focusing on some technologies not related to BLE and BLE device just works as an auxiliary device that helps us to demo our technology. Do we still need to declare our Bluetooth product if we are going to use it to demo to our business customers or even during an expo-shows? Or it should be declared only if our business customer will decide to sell it to the end customer?

4. In case we are going to design a full system that will consist of 2-3 different Bluetooth products e.g. It will be a Bluetooth server/gateway that will be collecting data from a couple of sensors (different products, based on the same or similar HW). Should we declare and pay the fees for each product?

5. What else should we be aware of, before bringing our Bluetooth based product to the market?

6. Are there any other protocols that don't require high membership/adoption/declaration fees supported in Nordic products? Are there anything like Microchip MiWi which is are free for commercial use and comes as pre-certified modules? As for small start-up company it is essential.  Would be Thread stack on the nRF52840 the correct option? Or should I stick to proprietary protocols like ESB?

Thank you in advance.

Best Regards,
Jev 

[ketiljo]

1. If we decide to go to the market and sell our product, what it will cost to us? Is it just Declaration fee which is $4000 (Associate) or $8000 (Adopter, in our case)? Is it applied per each product? Will it involve any other fees e.g. testing and etc.?

 The fee is per end product yes. https://www.bluetooth.com/develop-with-bluetooth/qualification-listing/qualification-listing-fees/ No testing required for the Bluetooth part, other than general radio testing of course. 

 

2. What is the process of declaration/qualification? Is it similar to compliance testing and will involve the physical test on the end product? Incl. Hardware & Software?

 You start with this process: https://www.bluetooth.com/develop-with-bluetooth/qualification-listing/qualification-process-with-no-required-testing/ 

 

3. Do we need to declare the product if we are going the B2B route and will sell the technology, but not the product as itself. E.g. the company I am working at is focusing on some technologies not related to BLE and BLE device just works as an auxiliary device that helps us to demo our technology. Do we still need to declare our Bluetooth product if we are going to use it to demo to our business customers or even during an expo-shows? Or it should be declared only if our business customer will decide to sell it to the end customer?

 Listing is required for the end product to be sold. So if you don't sell the product to an end customer, you shouldn't need to list it. But your customers have to in case they take this into a end product. 

 

4. In case we are going to design a full system that will consist of 2-3 different Bluetooth products e.g. It will be a Bluetooth server/gateway that will be collecting data from a couple of sensors (different products, based on the same or similar HW). Should we declare and pay the fees for each product?

 It's per end product. But if you have multiple configurations of the same HW, you could list just the superset of the devices.

 

5. What else should we be aware of, before bringing our Bluetooth based product to the market?

Form a Bluetooth perspective, there's noting else but the product listing. 

 

6. Are there any other protocols that don't require high membership/adoption/declaration fees supported in Nordic products? Are there anything like Microchip MiWi which is are free for commercial use and comes as pre-certified modules? As for small start-up company it is essential.  Would be Thread stack on the nRF52840 the correct option? Or should I stick to proprietary protocols like ESB?

 Therad also have some kind of listing fee. As long as it's a protocol backed by a interest group, like Bluetooth, Zigbee, Thread, etc, there's very often a listing fee that covers the operation of the group. You can always go for a proprietary protocol like ESB, but you will not have the same interoperability as a standard. 

[Jev]

First of all, thanks for your reply!

ketiljo said:

 The fee is per end product yes. https://www.bluetooth.com/develop-with-bluetooth/qualification-listing/qualification-listing-fees/ No testing required for the Bluetooth part, other than general radio testing of course. 

Will it be required to conduct a general radio testing in order to get FCC/CE approval even if we will use a pre-certified module (with FCC/CE) from the following list:

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Software-and-tools/3rd-Party/3rd-party-modules

Can we get away with just general EMI/EMC or even self-certification? Are these pre-certified modules just gives an imminity against test?

ketiljo said:

Listing is required for the end product to be sold. So if you don't sell the product to an end customer, you shouldn't need to list it. But your customers have to in case they take this into a end product. 

Even if the product will be demoed or sold to business customer as a solution, so the business customer will be required to do certification before puttin to market? Am I correct?

ketiljo said:

Therad also have some kind of listing fee. As long as it's a protocol backed by a interest group, like Bluetooth, Zigbee, Thread, etc, there's very often a listing fee that covers the operation of the group. You can always go for a proprietary protocol like ESB, but you will not have the same interoperability as a standard. 

I might be wrong, but I thought that the Thread is royalty free, so it is not mandatory to pay fees or list your device within Thread. Am I wrong? I do understand the importance of all these fees, that they will help to support futher development of the protocol, but as a small company or individual, just can't afford that amount of fees spent on the product. Unfortunatelly, some of proprietary protocols are poor in terms of specs, like number of nodes connected or other reduced functionality. 

Thanks again.

[ketiljo]

Jev said:

Will it be required to conduct a general radio testing in order to get FCC/CE approval even if we will use a pre-certified module (with FCC/CE) from the following list:

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Software-and-tools/3rd-Party/3rd-party-modules

Can we get away with just general EMI/EMC or even self-certification? Are these pre-certified modules just gives an imminity against test?

For a pre-certified module, you normally don't have to do general radio testing, except for EMI/EMC. For CE, you can self certify the radio testing if that's done already. Provided you don't have other transmitters, body worn devices etc. as outlined in the qualification note for the module.

 

Jev said:

ketiljo said:

Listing is required for the end product to be sold. So if you don't sell the product to an end customer, you shouldn't need to list it. But your customers have to in case they take this into a end product. 

Even if the product will be demoed or sold to business customer as a solution, so the business customer will be required to do certification before puttin to market? Am I correct?

Yes, it's the one that puts it into market to be available for the end user that has to list the product.  

 

Jev said:

I might be wrong, but I thought that the Thread is royalty free, so it is not mandatory to pay fees or list your device within Thread. Am I wrong? I do understand the importance of all these fees, that they will help to support futher development of the protocol, but as a small company or individual, just can't afford that amount of fees spent on the product. Unfortunatelly, some of proprietary protocols are poor in terms of specs, like number of nodes connected or other reduced functionality. 

 I think Thread itself is free to use, but you have to be member of the Thread Group https://www.threadgroup.org/thread-group#Membershipbenefits

[Jev]

ketiljo said:

For a pre-certified module, you normally don't have to do general radio testing, except for EMI/EMC. For CE, you can self certify the radio testing if that's done already. Provided you don't have other transmitters, body worn devices etc. as outlined in the qualification note for the module.

What you meant by "body worn devices", do you mean devices that has direct contact with skin/body (e.g. chest pulse strap, smartwatch and etc).

Thanks for all your replies! That does cover all the things I wanted to clarify.