The XEWA™ Certified Program

What does the XEWA™ Certified mean
XEWA™ Certified basically means that we have physically tested the listed products to be working as expected with XEWA™, in certain situations it even means that we have developed specific features and/or functions in XEWA™ for the listed product(s).

If a product like for example a certain ‘Arduino® Development Board’ is not XEWA™ Certified, then this does not mean that it will not work with XEWA™. It just means that we did not tested and confirmed it working as expected ourselves. This most likely also means that we did not (yet) developed and/or integrated custom functions or features for the ‘uncertified product’ either.

Using the XEWA™ Certified Logo
If your product is officially XEWA™ Certified, then you are allowed to use the XEWA™ Certified Logo on your product, on it’s product pages and packaging for example. When placing the XEWA™ logo on the product’s website, the XEWA™ Certified Logo should be clickable and direct users to this page.

If your product for example is using the same chips as other certified products, but your product is not officially certified, then you are not allowed to use the XEWA™ Certified Logo either! We will only allow the use of the XEWA™ Certified Logo for products which have been tested first hand by us ourselves.

How to Get XEWA™ Certified
To get your product XEWA™ Certified, we will need to test your product with XEWA™ directly. This for example means that if you have a Microcontroller development board, that we will need to test it ourselves (‘in-house’) with XEWA™. The reason for this is that we are using the XEWA™ Certification Program so that XEWA™ users are certain that products with the XEWA™ Certified Logo should work as expected when using it with XEWA™. If we haven’t certified your product for use with XEWA™ (yet), you can contact us through the contact form to request a XEWA™ Certification.

It will also often happen that we ourselves select products which will get XEWA™ Certified, without you or the manufacturer having to contact us. This just means that we have validated that the product works as expected with XEWA™, or that we have build special features/functions for this product into XEWA™ so that the users of the certified product will be able to use it with XEWA™.

What products are eligible for XEWA™ Certification
Products which can directly work with or use functions of XEWA™ are eligible for certification. This for example would be:

• Microcontroller Development Boards which communicate with XEWA™ (using the Serial Console, or even with ‘special features’ build into XEWA™ for certain boards)
• Products which can communicate or utilize specific features of XEWA™ like
  • USB Microscopes for the XEWA™ Microscope Studio
  • Digital Multimeters which can communicate with XEWA™ for logging, plotting etc.
  • LAB Power supplies which work with the XEWA™ LAB Power Supply Manager Module
  • Oscilloscopes which can communicate with XEWA™ for the XEWA™ Oscilloscope module(s).
• Sometimes we also certify products which are not directly communicating themselves with XEWA™ but will for example be communicating with XEWA™ via a Microcontroller development board. Examples of such products could for example be LCD displays etc.

XEWA™ Certified Program Requirements
The requirements for a product to be able to get XEWA™ Certified are:

• The product needs to be a product either intended for the ‘average electronics user’ or it has to be a product which has become ‘mainstream’ within the electronics community.
• The product needs to be able to communicate (in a useful way) with XEWA™ directly or for example through a Microcontroller Development Board.
• The product needs to function fully as expected with XEWA™ (for example all features of the product need to be usable with or through XEWA™)
• The product needs to be ‘widely accessible’ for the majority of our/the electronics community and the ‘target group’ of XEWA™. This for example means that it would be useless to request XEWA™ Certification for a $15.000 oscilloscope. Simply because this would be equipment which most users of XEWA™ would not use (and neither would most user whom do use such equipment actually use XEWA™).
• If there are ‘product specific’ features build into XEWA™ for your product group (for example a Digital Multimeter), then all features in XEWA™ should be working as expected with your product.
• If your product uses some sort of ‘secret command set’ or something else which makes you want us to sign some kind of ‘non-disclosure-agreement (an NDA)’, then just don’t even consider sending it in. We obviously have no plans or intentions to ‘expose your secrets‘, but if our users are discussing something in regards to a specific certified product, we don’t want to be worried about ‘accidentally exposing a secret protocol or command’!
• To make it extra clear: We will not accept any product for XEWA™ Certification which requires us to sign some kind of NDA or ‘phishy contract’ before you send it in. XEWA™ Certification is on our terms, and not yours.
• If the product you want to get certified is ‘yet another clone/copy/derivative’ of a ‘mainstream/common’ development board, with exactly the same features and just a different silkscreen, then please don’t apply. If your board is actually a derivative with useful or important changes, then it would be no problem. But ‘Yet another exact Uno, Nano etc copy’ will not be accepted for certification. Simply because this could ‘junk up’ the XEWA™ Certification program rather quickly.

The XEWA™ Certified Program Is No ‘Endorsement Program‘
That a specific product is actually XEWA™ Certified by us, does not automatically means that we also endorse this product, neither does this mean that the product or it’s manufacturer actually endorses XEWA™ or XNL Future Technologies™. It just means that we have tested and confirmed it to be working correctly with XEWA™, or that we might have developed specific features for this product so that the users of XEWA™ are able to use this product properly with XEWA™.

Neither should the XEWA™ Certification be considered as a ‘general product quality’ review or approval! The XEWA™ Certification only means that the product has been certified to work with XEWA™ as expected.

The XEWA™ Certified Program Is Not A Guarantee
When a product is XEWA™ Certified, then this does not give a 100% guarantee that this product keeps working as expected in the future. If a manufacturer for example changes the communication protocol’s of their product, or they change the ‘communication chips’ in their product, then there would obviously be a possibility that said product would no longer function (as expected) with XEWA™.

XEWA™ Certification Can Be Revoked
When a product has suddenly changed significantly (this could be both due to hardware changes in newer versions, or even with firmware changes), it is possible that we will need to revoke the XEWA™ certified status of your product if these newer versions (suddenly) pose problems when using it with XEWA™

XEWA™ Certification Does not automatically span entire product family’s or series
This means that if you for example have an entire ‘product series’ of Digital Multimeters which can communicate with XEWA™, and we have for example tested your ‘DMM1140, DMM1250 and DMM1310’ products in this series, but your product family ranges from DMM10xx to DMM19xx, that it is not automatically allowed that you ‘label them all’ (or the entire DMM1xxx series) as XEWA™ certified! This is only possible if we have 100% certainty that they do actually all use the same communication protocols and features.

If there are major differences within a certain product family, then it is obviously now allowed to ‘slap a certified logo’ on them if only one or two of the product have been tested and verified within the program.

XEWA™ Certification Costs
In general there are no costs involved in getting your product(s) certified with XEWA™. We do however need to have your product ‘physically in our lab’ to actually test it (or even write additional support functions for it). This means that we already need to have your product at hand, or that we will need to acquire the product so that we can test and certify it.

If you have contacted us and we have approved your XEWA™ Certification request, then it would be possible to send-in your product so that we can certify it, or even develop additional features/support for XEWA™ specifically for your product. However any costs involved in sending your product in to us (including shipping, VAT, Customs duties etc) are on your (or your company’s) behalf. This means that if you want to send-in a product for XEWA™ Certification, that you are responsible for paying any and all of the costs to ‘get the product to us’.

We will not accept devices/products to be send-in on a ‘on loan’ basis for XEWA™ Certification
This might sound a bit childish at first like “Ow you want us to certify your product? Then we want to keep it”… But this actually has several reasons:

• It would make us liable for any damages happening to the product(s) while they are in our possession while waiting for certification or even if something might go wrong during certification/testing.
• It would either involve costs for us to return-ship it, or it would involve additional administrative paperwork and such to handle your ‘payment’ for return-shipping.
• It would put ‘time pressure’ on the certification process, which is something we can’t have due to the fact that we already have very limited time with everything what is going on (creating the content, managing the platform(s), developing and maintaining our own projects and products etc).
• The certification process can take quite some time (especially when we have to write additional support or modules for your product), and as we all know: ‘time = money’
• Your product will actually get (additional) ‘free exposure’ due to XEWA™ and/or it’s certification program.

These (and several other) reasons have made us decide that we will not accept products to be send-in on a ‘on-loan basis’ for certification. You could (and should) basically consider the ‘lost product’ as your investment for the XEWA™ Certification program. We (currently) do not require any special fees to get your product certified or ‘promoted’ (by listing it on the XEWA™ pages) at all.

Why is my product certification taking so long?
Depending on how your product needs to be tested, it can take quite some time before we can actually ‘activate’ it’s XEWA™ Certified status. If your product is a ‘standard product’ (like for example a Microcontroller Development Board), then your certification might go a lot faster than when we for example need to develop (or update) certain functions for your product.

We however do not give any guarantees on how long it will take to get your product XEWA™ Certified, and neither will will give any guarantees that it would actually pass the XEWA™ Certified Program (if it doesn’t work as expected, it will obviously not pass the certification either).

My product is taking waaaaaaaay to long to get certified, I want it back!
This would be highly unlikely, because we are trying to get every certification done as fast as possible (so we don’t get buried under a long back-log either). And on the small off chance that we have overlooked or forgotten your product (due to our already heavy workload), we would recommend you to send us an email by requesting an update if your certification is taking up to more than three (3) months.

However the ‘I want it back’ is a no-go here, because like explained (and agreed by you when sending it in): You have basically ‘donated your product’ for certification. And no matter how long certification takes or that it might not pass certification: It is/was not a ‘on-loan agreement’.

Certification Request Tip
If you want to get your product certified, we would like to recommend you to test your product as extensively as possible with XEWA™ yourself before even considering applying for certification. This way you can make changes to your product or for example provide additional documentation on what different commands your product needs to be working as expected.

If your product for example uses certain serial commands, then you should also provide proper and clear documentation on what these commands do, what the (expected) responses are etc. This will minimize our need for research and thus also prevent us from wasting time on such research (considering you already have all this documentation).

Keep in mind that if we have to develop lots of new features, code or ‘protocols’ for your product (to work with XEWA™), that it might (read: will) most likely also take a lot longer for the Certification to be completed.

What is my product does not pass the XEWA™ certification process
We will then notify you about this and where possible also about why it didn’t pass the certification.

Products which have been certified on request will be marked as [sponsored]
When you send in a product for certification (after first getting your certification request approved obviously), and it will then get the XEWA™ Certified status, we will also list your product on these pages. But because you actually requested the certification and supplied your product for certification to us, we will put [sponsored] at your product listing.

This is to be transparent to our users that the manufacturer actually has requested certification themselves.

If we ourselves decide to certify a product, it will not have this [sponsored] ‘marking’. Same goes for a product which for example is requested often by the community to get XEWA™ Certified.

NOTE: It will not be possible to request us to leave out the ‘[sponsored] tag’ if you send in a product for ‘XEWA™ Certification on request’