The argument “I don’t see it, therefore it doesn’t exist” doesn’t hold any water. Allow me to open your eyes.
Heh, they have at least one product submitted, though there is a condition that a device has to be ready for manufacture before it is submitted. Maybe everything they make is “beta hardware”?
The wireless cards inside the Librem 5 are certified and Kyle said (somewhere) because the cards are removable they don’t know if they need the whole device certified. But just to make sure they are also in the process to also certify the entire device.
Anyway, in the shipping emails, they ask if you want to delay shipping until the certification is complete.
The Librem 5 probably already has the CE marking, because it basically self-certified. The manufacturer simply has to submit a document saying that their product confirms with the relevant regulations of the EU, but no body has to test the device to verify that they followed those regulations. If they are caught having not followed the regulations, however, it is a criminal offense.
Here is what Wikipedia says:
The CE mark on a product indicates that the manufacturer or importer of that product affirms its compliance with the relevant EU legislation and the product may be sold anywhere in the European Economic Area (EEA). It is a criminal offence to affix a CE mark to a product that is not compliant or offer it for sale.[5]
For example, most electrical products must comply with the Low Voltage Directive and the EMC Directive, among others; toys must comply with the Toy Safety Directive. (The Low Voltage Directive is about electrical safety; EMC or Electromagnetic Compatibility[6] means the device will work as intended without interfering with, or being affected by, the use or function of any other device.) The CE mark indicates compliance with as many Directives as apply at the time of the declaration of compliance (see below). In the case of electrical products, several later Directives such as the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) are relevant in addition to the Low Voltage Directive and EMC Directive. The exact significance of the CE mark therefore depends on when it was applied to a specific unit.
The marking does not indicate EEA manufacture or that the EU or another authority has approved a product as safe or conformant.[7]
Obtaining FCC certification should be a fast process as long as the Librem 5 isn’t doing anything wrong. For a device using RF components that are already FCC certified, it usually takes 3-5 weeks for a testing company to test the device and then it submits its test results to one of the authorized certifying companies, which takes another 1-2 weeks. Considering that Purism posted photos of an Evergreen prototype on Aug. 28, 2020 with the longer case (and presumably with longer antennas for better RF reception), I expected Purism to already have the FCC certification by now. However, Purism only posted about its larger 4500 mAh on Nov 12, so it could be that it only recently got a prototype with the larger battery that it could send in for FCC testing. If Purism sent in a device for FCC testing in the first week of November, it should have the FCC certification by the middle of December, as long as the testing doesn’t find anything wrong.
Still, the lack of FCC certification does explain why Purism is only sending out a small number of Evergreens to the early backers and why Purism is using JIT manufacturing so that it can adjust the design in case the testing finds something wrong in the design.
As for why Purism only let the early backers know in an email and didn’t announce it in their Shipping FAQ on Nov 3 or shipping announcement on Nov 18, I assume that Purism is trying to generate new Librem 5 orders with the news that Evergreen is shipping. We know that the development of the Librem 5 went way over budget, so I’m not going to be too hard on the company for trying to boost the phone sales now. For people who are thinking of ordering today, this isn’t very important info, because the phone will have FCC certification by the time they get it and it is unlikely to have any influence over how long it takes to get the phone. Only if they want to check the SAR level of the phone do I think that people ordering today should care, and if they care about that, then they will have already checked the FCC website and seen that Purism hasn’t yet submitted its application. Far more relevant info for people ordering today is the current battery life, progress on the cameras and smart card reader in the kernel, which apps have been adapted for the Librem 5, which software has been adapted to use the sensors, UI improvements in Phosh, etc.
The issue as @eugenr pointed out is the erosion of trust when Purism isn’t up front about these issues.
The explanation is pretty simple: the Shipping FAQ was strictly focused on trying to answer “when do I get my phone?” and wasn’t intended to address the current state of the hardware or software when it shipped (beyond the fact that it wasn’t the subject of the post, also because that was still a week or two out and so much of this status changes week on week). The shipping announcement was a press release written for and intended to be for press outlets.
The current status of the hardware (such as camera drivers) and certification are subject to change soon, and some people care more than others about it, so we reasoned that the best thing to do was to make people aware of the current state of things before we shipped a device to them, so they could let us know if they wanted us to wait to ship until we completed certification, or camera drivers, etc. Informing people this way allows us to update the shipping notification email easily as each of these things change.
Another delay?
Huh? No, there are no delays. However if someone tells us they’d rather wait to receive their phone until after certification (it sounds like some folks in this thread are in that camp) that’s fine, we can hold off on shipping their phone until then. The people who don’t care about that don’t have to wait.
I was informally informed that I am not an early backer and my phone should be shipping by late Dec. or early Jan.
You’ll have that certification by then won’t you?
I don’t have any info on those timelines so I couldn’t say.
Does it matter to ones service provider?
Why would it? Radio stations don’t care what radio you use. My ISP doesn’t care what modem I use. My phone doesn’t care what charger I use (as long as the wattage etc is correct). If any of those things caused some other device to go haywire, that’s on the manufacturer of that device, and perhaps me for using it.
So the FCC Certification is not an issue? What is it necessary for then?
Tick-a-box compliance? 
What’s that? Gov. BS?
Just looked it up. This stuff is sure complicated to a simpleton like me.
Seems you missed that
Anyways, the radio cards are certified, but as an electronic device, as a whole, the phone must be too.
I don’t know why Kyle plays this down, what is the legal loophole to keep shipping non-certified electronic devices, or why someone would want a non-certified one…
They are a hardware company, they should know exactly what they can or cannot do.
I won’t look further into this, but I’ll expect to get a certified phone.
But then phones are probably being imported without their cellular modems. So the phone by itself can hardly fail testing regarding emissions in the cellular frequencies (since there are no emissions). (It could fail testing regarding emissions in the 2 WiFi bands.)
The cellular modem is imported by itself - but it already has certification.
Then, in accordance with your choice, the cellular modem is installed in your phone. But that’s not being imported into the US.
Who knows?
That makes sense. I just want my phone. Going crazier waiting now that it’s getting so close to shipping. Coming down to the wire after almost 3 yrs. the finish line is getting real close. They say end of Dec or early Jan for me! Starting to get really excited! Soon the presents will be under the tree
I should add to my post that, in my post, emissions means intentional emissions. It is always possible that a device accidentally interferes with something else via unintentional emissions.
Yes, even if you kill switched off the two radio cards, the mainboard that
Purism designed and the phone as a whole, theoretically, can produce harmful EMI (electro-magnetics interference) that causes the plane to crash.