Tales from the llama...: Fitness Equipment Teardowns thanks to the FCC

If you're like me you love to see the inner workings of things. Seeing what's inside your new mobile phone, or what's inside your new bike computer, or what's inside your carbon bike frame.

Most of the time we only get to see the insides of our equipment through accidents or failure. And that's not good. Thanks to YouTube there's many channels we can search that'll give us equipment tear-down videos.

But what about the items that nobody's taken apart yet? Like the Wahoo Elemnt or say the Tacx Flux? Wait... nobody even has one of those yet. Do you risk pulling the tools out and having a look inside yourself when it arrives? Could be risky!

Enter the FCC.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government, to regulate interstate communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. Wikipeda

HWTek have a great overview over on their site, in summary:

Even without knowledge of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), you will probably recognize this symbol. No matter what country you are in right now, there is sure to be several devices around you which all bear this mark – turnover your laptop/keyboard and see. The FCC is a US government agency which governs limits for Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) to ensure the amount of radiation emitted from a device is not harmful to people, or disruptive to other devices.

If you're buying anything in fitness tech field with Bluetooth Smart, ANT+, or anything with electronics in it, there's a really good chance it has been FCC certified and is listed on the FCC website. Product FCC registration entries are also a goldmine of tech details...... and.... product teardowns!

Link: FCC Equipment Authorization Search

What to expect under the FCC search results:

Application documentation, external photos, RF exposure reports, test setup photos, and the two most interesting ones.... Internal photos and user manuals. User manuals for products that may be released but not available? That IS a goldmine of good information to me!

Note: The photos are primarily focused on the electronics and radio components, so working out how things work is up to the viewer. The user guides listed in the entry come in handy for this.