With the rapid development of technology, smart home is gradually becoming the new favorite of modern families. As an important part of smart home, smart switches are gradually replacing traditional mechanical wall switches with their unique functional advantages and convenient use experience, showing huge market potential.
With the continuous development and application of technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence, the intelligence level of smart switches has been further improved, and its application scenarios have become more extensive. Compared with mechanical wall switches, smart switches can be remotely controlled anytime and anywhere, which is convenient and fast, and can also be controlled automatically, and intelligent and automatic control can be achieved by setting time, scene and other modes to improve efficiency. In addition, the smart switch is more energy-saving and environmentally friendly, and can automatically cut off and close the power by actively detecting the power consumption, so as to achieve the purpose of energy saving and low carbon emissions.
In addition to the functional innovation and also give the switch decoration effect, the current smart switch is widely used in home intelligent transformation, office intelligent transformation, industrial intelligent transformation, agriculture, forestry, fishery and animal husbandry intelligent transformation and other fields, greatly saving energy, improving the efficiency of generation, reducing operating costs, and truly achieving "wisdom in the world".
While the smart switch market is booming, we have to face up to a key problem: due to the lack of unified quality evaluation standards and certification systems, the quality of smart switch products on the market is uneven, which brings great trouble to consumers' choice. The existence of this phenomenon not only affects the purchase experience and user satisfaction of consumers, but also hinders the healthy development of the smart switch market to a certain extent.
At present, the standards followed by domestic smart switches mainly focus on the safety and some performance requirements of household and similar switch products, while there is still a gap in the quality grading and evaluation of smart switch products. In particular, the innovation of intelligent interconnection function of intelligent switches, as its core advantage, currently lacks clear evaluation standards, and cannot effectively measure and guide the development of intelligent switches in intelligence. The coverage of the standard is insufficient and the update is lagging behind, which makes it difficult to ensure the quality of smart switch products on the market, and it is difficult for consumers to judge the quality of the product.
In view of this, the China Consumer Goods Quality and Safety Promotion Association (hereinafter referred to as the "China Consumer Association") actively organized leading enterprises in the industry and national third-party institutions to jointly develop and formulate the group standard TCPQS E00062-2023 "Consumer Electrical Appliances Evaluation Smart Switch", combined with the industry quality level, new technology application and consumer focus, the current national industry standard has been comprehensively upgraded to the indicators that consumers are concerned about, and a number of innovative indicators have been added to fill the standard gap in this field. In order to promote the implementation of the project, on this basis, the China Consumer Council has further developed the smart switch BG certification, which aims to promote the improvement of the quality of smart switch products, enhance its competitiveness in the market, and provide consumers with a clearer product quality reference, and enhance purchase confidence and satisfaction.
01 Smart switch BG certification
As an important part of smart home, the performance and quality of smart switches are critical to user experience and industry development. In order to further improve the quality and safety of smart switch products, and to match the differences in the functions of different products, the smart switch BG certification is guided by the group TCPQS E00062-2023 "Consumer Electrical Appliance Evaluation Smart Switch", and the implementation rules adopt the setting of required + optional items, in which the mandatory items focus on the core product needs, and the optional items highlight the innovative features and highlights to more comprehensively evaluate the performance of the product.
02 Smart switch BG certification - a must-do
01|The temperature rise of the surface can be touched by the switch
In terms of basic performance, we pay attention to key indicators such as the temperature rise of the accessible surface of the switch, the mechanical strength of the screen, and the service life. The temperature rise of the accessible surface of the switch is based on the GB/T 16915.2-2012 standard, and the national standard ≤ 40 K is upgraded to ≤20 K to ensure that the user will not be injured by overheating during use.
02|Mechanical strength of the screen
We have upgraded the requirements for the mechanical strength test of the screen according to the GB/T 16915.1-2014 standard, and made it clear that after 10 sets of pendulum impact on the switch surface, there is no visible damage, so as to ensure that the switch screen has sufficient durability.
03|Service life
In terms of service life, in accordance with the relevant provisions of GB/T 16915.2-2012 and IEC 60669-2-1, we have classified and upgraded the number of operations of the switch under different circuit types to ensure that each switch type circuit can work for a long time and stably.
04|High and low temperature start
In terms of environmental adaptability, we considered high and low temperature start-up performance. According to the JB/T 11899-2014 standard, the industry standard requires that the electronic switch can work normally at the maximum and minimum ambient temperature declared by the manufacturer to ensure the stability and reliability of the switch in various extreme environments, while the implementation rules of BG certification clearly define that the high temperature shall not be higher than 55 °C, and the low temperature shall not be lower than -25 °C.
05|Communication Capabilities
In terms of communication capabilities, we have set new indicators such as total radiated power (TRP), total isotropic sensitivity (TIS), coverage (R), switch response time (T), control success rate (C), connection stability (S) and penetration (W) for smart switches with communication functions, which are set based on market demand, and have developed scientific detection methods to ensure that smart switches have excellent performance in the communication process to meet users' expectations for smart homes.
03 Smart switch BG certification - optional
Among the optional indicators of smart switches, we have upgraded and considered EMC immunity, communication capability, voice control, surface material, OTA remote upgrade, etc.
01|EMC immunity
In terms of EMC immunity, reference is made to GB/T 16915.2-2012 and ETSI EN 301 489-17 industry standards, and the definition of wireless communication is added on the basis of the national standard based on electronic switches. For devices that support PER or FER, the performance level should be maintained at a PER or FER level of less than or equal to 8%, and for devices that are not supported, the wireless transmission capabilities for which they are intended to be used should not be lost.
02|Communication capability
In terms of communication capability, according to market demand, the BG certification of smart switches requires that the directivity coefficient should not be greater than 6dBi to ensure the stability and coverage of communication. In terms of anti-interference, we have set the test requirements for packet loss rate, and the difference between the packet loss rate in the interference-free environment and the interference environment should be less than 2% to evaluate the communication stability of the switch in complex environments.
03|Voice control
For smart switches with voice control functions, we refer to the GB/T 36464.2-2018 standard to make detailed requirements for its wake-up success rate, command word recognition rate, number of false wake-ups, interaction success rate, response time and other indicators. The current national standard requires that in the low-noise and high-noise home environment, the smart switch should maintain a wake-up success rate of about 80% and a command word recognition rate, and the number of false wake-ups should be controlled at ≤0.2 times/h. However, the smart switch BG certification has comprehensively upgraded the wake-up success rate, command word recognition rate, number of false wake-ups, interaction success rate, and response time in silent and moderate noise environments to ensure that users have a smoother experience when interacting with smart switches.
04|Surface material
In terms of surface material, the smart switch BG certification also sets a series of strict standards according to market demand. It is required that there should be no obvious defects on the front and side of the switch, and the surface coating quality should meet the requirements of GB/T 9286-20211. At the same time, the surface of the switch should be resistant to dirt, and there should be no traces left after the test. In addition, we also put forward requirements for the antibacterial, anti-mildew and anti-salt spray corrosion resistance of the switch material to ensure that the switch can maintain good appearance and performance in long-term use.
05|Over-the-air (OTA) remote upgrade
In terms of OTA remote upgrade, the BG certification of smart switch also requires that smart switch should have the ability of OTA remote upgrade and can be upgraded automatically. During the upgrade, if the network or power is disconnected, it should work normally and continue the upgrade after recovery. At the same time, the OTA remote upgrade process should have a logging function to record information such as devices, upgrade packages, upgrade operations, and results. During the entire upgrade process, the failure time of the device should be less than 30 seconds, and it should have the ability to verify the integrity of the upgrade package to ensure the security and stability of the upgrade process.
At present, this high-profile BG certification has been officially launched on the national certification and accreditation information public service platform of the State Administration for Market Regulation. We sincerely invite companies interested in applying to apply through Weikai Certification and Testing Technology Co., Ltd., which is authorized by the China Consumer Association, or directly through Chen Sheng: 13603079202 (same number on WeChat) to understand the consultation~