nRF51822 Equipment Type Approval (INDIA) for a deployment next week

[pltv]

Hello Folks

I would highly apprciate if anyone can point me in the right direction here

After lot of consultation we imported a smal size shipment (of about 1000 nRF51822 based beacons) to India. We have a delivery / deployment commitment next week. unfortunately customs after a 2 week hiatus is asking for Equipment Type Approval for the radio.

Our understanding is that such an approval is not specific to a particular company / individual importing a device but generic to the device itself. So if basically anyone has managed to import nRF51822 based devices after approval then the same approval applies to all future imports of devices based on the nRF51822 radio

Does anyone know of any instance of such an approval for nRF51822 devices in India. We have a hearing with the customs on Friday and need to either present documents or justification on why such an approval is not required. Any pointers would be helpful

Thanks in advance Prasanna

[GS]

What you have imported is just one n51822-based beacon design. Technically, if this exact design or manufacturer part has been type approved and imported earlier, then you are sorted. I am not sure if any n51822-based design type approval can be applied here. Will you be adding firmware, enclosures, batteries etc. to these beacons in India? If yes, then these beacons are an input to your final product (and therefore not a finished product at the time of import). So you should check if WPC type approvals are for finished products or for inputs.

[pltv]

OK really valid argument. In-fact all of the above apply. We have a custom firmware, a custom housing (developed locally) and batteries etc. The import is just the PCB. Let me do more research on this. Thanks for the input

[pltv]

@Guruprasad The logic worked out. Ofcourse it took a personal hearing for an hour to convince the customs officer followed by an actual inspection of the devices. But finally the officer bought in to the argument that the PCB without plastic casing is not a final product and hence cannot be certified / approved by Wireless Planning Commission. Thanks a bunch

Also i need to note that, while people have been importing beacons and nRF based devices in to India without any approvals, WPC clearly states that any wireless device for whatever purpose needs approval. Even the Nordic staff whom i contacted seem to think that CE certification should be enough. But that is not the case.

[GS]

@prasanna Glad to hear that! Would you still need WPC approval for the final assembled unit? And where are you deploying these beacons? Just curious!

[pltv]

@guruprasad Yes very much. No one can operate or establish any kind of wireless network in the unlicensed band (2.4 GhZ) without WPC Equipment Type Approval. The officer infact showed me a print out of the Ghazette notification which states this clearly. We would certainly be going for WPC type approval in the immediate future. I also know that couple of other beacon venors (Gimbal and Intel) have WPC approval for different modules. One such approval document is here (http://download.intel.com/support/edison/sb/certificationedisonindia.pdf)

I will write separately on the deployment. Plan to cover that in a blog post in a weeks time once the deployment is done. Will touch base offline