TÜV SÜD warns machinery makers to watch wireless 13 November 2014

Product compliance specialist TÜV SÜD Product Service is warning manufacturers integrating wireless modules into their products that they may be selling non-compliant equipment.

Jean-Louis Evans, managing director of TÜV SÜD Product Service, says the firm is seeing significant growth in the number of problem products entering its laboratories due particularly to the addition of wireless modules.

Machines that were not traditionally subject to the Radio and Telecommunications Terminal Equipment Directive (R&TTE) must now meet its requirements and manufacturers are failing to realise this, he advises.

"The integration of wireless modules is going beyond the traditional market, such as laptops and mobile phones, and they are now being included in everything from fridges to industrial machinery," states Evans.

"The problem is that, while these wireless modules are being sold to manufacturers as compliant, once they are integrated into another product that changes the rules, he continues.

"Manufacturers are assuming that, because the wireless module is compliant, they do not have to do any more tests to declare against different standards, [but] this is wrong."

Evans warns that market surveillance authorities will come down hard on manufacturers that supply non-compliant equipment to the market. And he adds that "ignorance of the rules is no excuse".

Brian Tinham

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