Very good point, but this is where it gets complicated.
EU allows companies to use the “CE” Mark, Which is the company’s self certification that it has met all the applicable EU regulatory requirements, including fire safety. The Sonoff iFan02 has this Mark, which you can see in the picture above.
So a CE Mark should be the equivalent of a UL Mark. However, it doesn’t go through independent third-party testing.
One recent study in the EU found that all of the big brand names with CE Marks met or exceeded the regulatory standards. But many of the cheap Chinese imports did not. In some cases, even when there was an independent test report, the model that was submitted for the lab tests had different engineering and components then the one which was delivered to market, because cheaper parts were used, some of which did not meet the standards.
So it really comes down to trust. If you trust the company to do what it says it is doing, then the CE Mark is a good sign. But if you are concerned that they might cut corners to gain market share, a CE Mark is pretty much worthless.
All of the teardowns that I have seen so far of Sonoff brand devices Have looked good from an engineering standpoint except for some grounding issues Where it is possible to wire in a non-grounded device into a grounded cord, thus bypassing the ground. But if you know what you’re doing when you’re wiring, you wouldn’t do it that way, so I’m not sure we can count that against the Sonoff design.
That’s as opposed to the teardowns of some no-name Chinese imports, which were significantly divergent from the CE standards Even when they had the mark.
@erocm1231 May have more to add, as he has done a lot of work with sonoff devices.
Because fire safety is a huge issue for me (I’m quadriparetic), I follow the same rule that you do and only use UL or ETL certified devices if they will be wired into the mains.
But I think Sonoff might be one of the CE Mark devices that some people will want to consider as well.
We should also mention another point about the CE Mark. See how the two letters are quite far apart? That’s part of the logo definition, and was intended to differentiate it from just two letters that might be part of a model number or something. (I personally think they should’ve put a box around it, but they didn’t.)
Some particularly unscrupulous Chinese manufacturers have created their own Mark, which they call “China Export” and which uses the same font and coloring as the CE safety mark, where the only difference being that the E is closer to the C than the official definition. The China export Mark is not an officially registered mark and has really no meaning at all except the obvious one of trying to fool people, including customs inspectors, into believing that it has the CE safety Mark.
The European Parliament has formally complained to the Chinese government about the “China export” Mark for at least 10 years, but you still occasionally see it. So that’s just another thing to watch out for.
http://spm.ucu.edu.ua/en/2016/04/27/conformite-europeenne-vs-china-export/