Type Approval

The Sigfox Ready and Sigfox Verified certifications are specific to Sigfox technology. There are also country-specific requirements that devices must comply to in order to legally work. These requirements are called Type Approvals.

Depending on the country, the necessary processes to obtain a type approval can differ considerably, ranging from “self-declaration” to “classical type approval” -- to more complicated rules, possibly.

The marketing of radio devices is highly regulated in all countries over the world and is considered very sensitive. Regulatory certification is a critical step in a go-to-market strategy, because it is the legal certification by the local country government for partner product sales.

Any RF device, including of course the ones using Sigfox techonology, must show compliances to country regulations and must follow the mandatory processes to obtain certification in each of them.

Hence, a Sigfox product must obtain at least two certifications, through two separate processes:

• Sigfox Certification: Mandatory to access the Sigfox network.
• Type approval: Mandatory to market a device in a given country/region.

These compliances do not depend on each other: a device can obtain a type approval without yet having obtained the Sigfox Ready certification. Conversely, you can start the Sigfox certification process without yet having started the type-approval process. Nevertheless, it may be convenient to book a test house for running all the tests at once (regulatory, Sigfox or other technologies).