Project Update: A little set-back and this is why I always get nervous opening up pre-orders. However, I’m thankful this happened prior to opening them up vs after.
UL came back with some comments that we had to think through, but ultimately made a decision which I’ll outline below.
We’re getting dinged for claiming our switches work with exhaust and ceiling fans (we’ve tested them and they do, but officially we won’t be able to say it and recommend it) as the fan listing requires a separate UL filing (read: more money).
Here were our options:
- Continue down the path of UL certification 1472, which covers, “Solid-State Dimming Controls” and remove any marketing, stamping, etc of a fan rating.
- Submit an additional UL certification using 1917, which covers, “Solid-State Fan Speed Controls” and claim the ability to turn on/off fans (w/no speed control - makes no sense, I know).
- Go down a path Brilliant went down (as we cited them as an example of someone who has a switch that is UL rated for on/off, dim and fans) and use UL Certification 60730, which covers, “Building Automation Controls & Systems”
The third option intrigued me, but there were trade-offs such as we weren’t able to call our product a dimmer switch, but rather what we could say is that it is a controller that can control dimmable bulbs. This sounds good until you think of it from a marketing perspective where people are searching keywords such as, “Smart Dimmer Switch” or “Dimmable Smart Switch”, etc. If we can’t officially call it a Dimmer Switch, then that’s a huge setback.
The other thing is that we’d have to pay to cancel 1472 and then re-submit under 60730, which would delay us even further.
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Ultimately we are going to continue down the path of 1472, and launch it with that rating, but once they are in market, we will start the certification for 1917 so we can have two UL ratings on them. Technically the first batch of switches won’t have the rating, so that stinks, but I figured rather than waiting an additional 6wks or so + spend another $25-30k for a niche case, it’d be fine launch as is.
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So what’s the bad news?
The bad news is now they’re targeting mid-June to finish UL, which puts us at an early July release… Ughhh…
I guess on the bright-side we have more time to perfect our instructions and knowledge-base 