3Rd Party Certification

[AdrianMealing]

Merely pointing out some of the double standards and the lack of consistency

Agreed plenty of double standards, but insurers will be like a dog with a bone if it means not paying up.

[matthew.brough]

If what Adrian is saying is true, when why are insurers asking for dualcom, and how is it able to be on the uk market without complying to the regs?

With pd6662 saying at it does, the only product we can use is webway and texecom panels?

Is redcare 3rd party certified? How about digi's? Galaxy ? ATS? HKC?

I'm not sure the insurers are so happy with Dualcom but the brokers love Redcare and Dualcom, but agree as these products aren't 3rd party tested they should not gain the support they do.

Yes, ATS is and all UTC products are 3rd party certified. They have a bit if a bee in their bonnet about self certification.

What he said, this train is rolling and we are on it, times are changing and it's about time the game was upped, truth is unless your supplier has done the work and spent the money YOU are the one that will be liable, not them.

I've been in the receiving end of these claims. Good documents and 3rd party approval cents are an excellent defence.

If the piece of paper is a self declaration, then IMHO it means nothing, if it comes from an independent test house certified to test to the required standard and inspected by a third party themselves, then all is well.

 

Let me give you another scenario.

 

You own your own company. You are approached by a company you are aware of, who has a real slick website, great sales pitch, and tells you he has 5000 monitired contracts all on 5 year terms. He wants to sell, so do you

 

A. Believe him and write the cheque to buy his company

 

B. Do some due diligence and check out what he is saying is true.

 

If you choose A carry on using what you are using.

 

If you choose B you will have the proper paperwork from an independent source that backs up his claim.

 

This may seem fairly simplistic, but it is the same.

That's a very good example, in the sinaro you state, no one would dream of taking their word for it.

[AdrianMealing]

I'm not sure the insurers are so happy with Dualcom but the brokers love Redcare and Dualcom, but agree as these products aren't 3rd party tested they should not gain the support they do.

Yes, ATS is and all UTC products are 3rd party certified. They have a bit if a bee in their bonnet about self certification.

I've been in the receiving end of these claims. Good documents and 3rd party approval cents are an excellent defence.

That's a very good example, in the sinaro you state, no one would dream of taking their word for it.

 

And that is just the problem, I will not name names, not my style, but there are some manufacturers who don't even do third party electrical safety testing

[Lwillis]

So if the insurers aren't going to pay out, but will accept having dualcom as a ATE device, then surely the insurance is void anyway so it wouldn't matter if you had a piece of wet string from your house to the local station. As whatever signalling method you used the insurers would find away of getting out of it.

Looking at honeywells website, the dimension and flex are 3rd party certified ( apparently) but the g2 series isn't.

So all the systems installed where the spec clearly states a galaxy G2/20 to be fitted using dualcom GPRS. And where the customers insurer have said yes that's fine we will accept that. The insurer has committed Fraud by saying its acceptable where really is it not?

Like telling you your car is insured and providing you with a insurance certificate when it's not really insured?!

[matthew.brough]

A mess I agree but Adrian is correct. When their is a loss, the big guns come for the installer and it's guilty until proven innocent.

[Lwillis]

Yeah see what your saying. Pd6662 states we must provide evidence it it suitable for the grade. Even with 3rd party testing I wouldn't say that's proof it does comply, no more than self certification.

If they are both certifying to the same standards .

[AdrianMealing]

So if the insurers aren't going to pay out, but will accept having dualcom as a ATE device, then surely the insurance is void anyway so it wouldn't matter if you had a piece of wet string from your house to the local station. As whatever signalling method you used the insurers would find away of getting out of it.

Looking at honeywells website, the dimension and flex are 3rd party certified ( apparently) but the g2 series isn't.

So all the systems installed where the spec clearly states a galaxy G2/20 to be fitted using dualcom GPRS. And where the customers insurer have said yes that's fine we will accept that. The insurer has committed Fraud by saying its acceptable where really is it not?

Like telling you your car is insured and providing you with a insurance certificate when it's not really insured?!

 

TBH if the insurer has specced it, and there is no certification, then down to them, but it will only need one significant loss on a site like this for them to change their tune.

[james.wilson]

And you using decent kit. You have confidence in your kit, I'm guessing the kit performs?

[AdrianMealing]

Yeah see what your saying. Pd6662 states we must provide evidence it it suitable for the grade. Even with 3rd party testing I wouldn't say that's proof it does comply, no more than self certification.

If they are both certifying to the same standards .

 

This is the BIG difference, self certification is easy, you just write down on a piece of paper what you claim your product is tested too. Third party certification and testing means that a totally independent notified body does all of the testing to the relevant standards, these tests can take months, and will cover all oft he requirements. There are clear pass fail criteria.

 

The test house WILL NOT issue a certificate if all the tests are not passed.

 

The manufacturer can do what they like when self certifying.

 

So in summary, i do not agree, the two are miles apart and the stakeholders in this industry need to understand the difference.

[cybergibbons]

Self certification works like this mpst of the time:

• Read standard
• Design system with the intent of it meeting the standard
• Assume design meets standard
• Sign it off

Some times it works like this:

• Read standard
• Copy some words off standard into marketing material
• Sign it off

Both of them are rubbish.

 

I've worked on a system that had to undergo third-party testing, and it means that not only does the third-party test the product properly, so do you, because each time  you get it back from the third-party as failed, it costs you as much as it would for it to pass.

 

Third-party testing to standards is a lot better, but as LWillis points out, it is still testing to the standard, so you rely on the standard being good. It sounds like good work is being done here, but it's slow going.

 

I think there should also be penetration testing done. I realise that a lot of you don't agree that that these vulnerabilities are exploitable, but they still exist and importantly, are fixable. A lot of them are caused by laziness. As the number of attack surfaces on alarms gets higher (with the increasing use of wireless and now IP), they will get exploited. Will it be burglars? Who knows. Spammers? DDoS bot networks? They are all possible.