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Trusted Smart Products

Mar 10, 2019 Features / Columnists, Standards in Focus

As we prepare to celebrate World Consumer Rights 2019, on March 15, under the theme ‘Trusted Smart Products’, the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) encourages all consumers to embrace technology and become knowledgeable about the smart products that are taking over our marketplace.
Smart products are data processing objects, which have several interactive functions. A smart product combines the physical and software interfaces. The usage of a smart product is interactive and requires also some cognitive work by the user.
Smart products are dedicated to certain functionality – they are not up-gradable.
Today, consumers are quickly gravitating towards the use of smart products such as televisions, smart phones, watches, refrigerators, washers and other electronic devices that operate by themselves to make once considered only human tasks, easier.
Consumers purchase these products firstly because of trust in how they will perform and secondly because of the convenience they provide in the execution of everyday tasks. Trust is enhanced by the product reviews past consumers provide.
This year, Consumers International joins with other consumer protection bodies around the world to highlight what consumers want and need from a connected world and how important it is to put them at the heart of the development of these digital products and services.
According to Consumers International, smart products are connected to the internet and receive, collect and send data. Globally, there are currently 23.1 billion smart products in the world, outnumbering people three to one.
Therefore, as more people come online across the world and our connection to the internet becomes better and faster, smart products will become more of a day-to-day reality for consumers everywhere, marking a major change in the way many consumers interact with products and services.
Indeed, the advancement in technology has been exceptionally fast in the 20th and 21st century. Every day another company brings out something more advanced in an attempt to win the consumer war against another company. This consumerism is driving the rate of advancement faster and faster each year.
The emergence of these smart technologies brings many opportunities for consumers; which include access to new services, more responsive products, greater convenience and choice. The availability of these products, however, creates some significant causes for concern such as the lack of security, privacy and meaningful choice over how we use them, as well as a lack of clarity about who is responsible when things go wrong.
To ensure that the best choices are made when purchasing smart products consumers should make sure that products are meeting the relevant standards and test requirements. A good visual guide would be the presence of a Standards Mark in the label affixed to the product.
In addition, the best choice also include the selection of products that are compatible to those that are already available and used. These products must be purchased from trusted companies.
As the National Standards Body, the GNBS helps to ensure that consumers are protected through a wide range of consumer products standards, which offer guidance on manufacturing, labelling, testing, and inspection of products; including smart products. The GNBS will continue to develop and promote these standards to manufacturers and suppliers and to monitor product quality and labelling to prevent consumers from purchasing substandard items.
For further information on this subject, contact the GNBS on telephone numbers: 219-0065 or 219-0064.

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