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Comment by f38zf5vdt | Hacker News Reader

It's so cheap because it comes with a power supply that doesn't have a UL or ETL certification, and as such could not be legally sold in North America. A decent quality power supply that could output 125 W would be around $50-70. You get what you pay for.

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I got a ceiling fan a few months back. The wireless remote had no FCC id on it. The box in the fan did. I opened the remote and the plastic was oddly formed, and there was only one nonsense word printed on the pcb, and "v1.0". The microcontroller didn't even have anything printed on it. I listened to it with an sdr and it was in the 434MHz band, and not overly noisy. It probably would have passed if someone had payed for it to be tested... If I'd purchased it on AliExpress or even ebay I wouldn't have been surprised, but it was a front page prime-day deal. I knew Amazon was iffy, but this was a straight up illegal product.

Amazon doesn't care, much of what is offered is ordered on Alibaba, shipped direct to an Amazon warehouse for Fulfilled by Amazon then resold at a notable markup.

Policing this is very hard for brands that have skus they would like to defend from fakes, nevermind a much broader range of consumer goods with little oversight.

So what is the law that requires UL, ETL or other NRTL for power supplies in network equipment?

If such a law exists then how does Ubiquiti get away with selling unlisted product in North America?

It depends on your jurisdiction. Some products fall under the Consumer Product Safety Act, others falls under different regulations. In Canada marks are required, in the US it depends on where you are and where you're installing it e.g. is it for home use or a hospital's internal network?

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/10639/is-ul-...

If your house burns down using an uncertified product, your insurance company may not also cover the claim. Personally I prefer to run electronics that I know are tested to not burn down my house or electrocute my children when they fail.

The article says the power supply is certified, but not the device.

It's CE certified which is something that Chinese companies print on everything, since it's a self-certification process. UL/ETL require you to do failure mode testing and provide detailed schematics of your equipment for review, and costs quite a bit of cash to get done.

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