The first rule of our buying policy is this: every product on our shelf carries a minimum two-year manufacturer warranty. This is not negotiable. We have walked away from products we otherwise loved because the warranty was only one year.
Why three? Because two is the minimum required by UK consumer law. One year is what an indifferent retailer offers. Two years is a statement.
What the warranty actually buys you
A warranty is, at heart, a statement of confidence. A manufacturer who warrants their product for five years is making a financial bet that fewer than X percent of units will fail in five years. That bet sets the design priorities. It dictates component selection, IP ratings, conformal coatings, the choice of Phillips screws over Pozi.
We have spent years cross-referencing warranty length against actual field-failure rates. The correlation is direct and almost embarrassing. Brands with five-year warranties have failure rates in the low single percent. Brands with twelve-month warranties have failure rates in the low double digits. There are no exceptions.
A warranty is, at heart, a statement of confidence.
The Andersen A2, our flagship wallbox, has a 0.7% field-failure rate at the four-year mark. We know this because we track it. The unit you are reading about will, in all likelihood, work flawlessly for a decade.
What we don't sell
We have a list, internally, of products we have removed from our shelves over the years. It is not a public list. We have no interest in shaming manufacturers who are working in good faith. But the criteria are public, and they are very simple. Under two-year warranty: no. Component obsolescence within five years: no. Sealed-shut housing that prevents repair: no. App-locked features that disappear when the manufacturer pivots strategy: no.
This is what curation actually means. It is not a marketing line. It is the boring, daily work of saying no.
Jake Wardle, Founder