Portable appliance testing (PAT) equipment’s are electrical safety testing devices that examines any appliance in which plug is fitted. Portable appliance testing is a term used to describe the examination of electrical equipment and appliances to make sure that they are safe to use and the idea behind it is to ensure that the electrical safety parameters i.e earth continuity/insulation resistance that were embedded by the product manufacturer have not been compromised while the equipment is in service.

Portable appliance is any electrical item of an equipment with a plug and normally moved around or can be moved and is connected to the mains supply such as power tools, vacuum cleaners, kitchen appliances, heaters, photocopiers, computers, etc.

Nowadays, testing any electrical devices before it is being dispatched from any manufacturing industry or work starts on it at any calibration industry, has become very important.

Portable appliance testing equipment or PAT especially designed to execute many mandatory electrical tests reliably, easily and quickly while maintaining stern conformance to guidelines and specifications required by authorities around the world.

Adopting PAT to execute equipment testing regularly in places such as calibration facilities or manufacturing plants helps to find potential problematic spots in manufacture, repair of equipment and design; greatly decreases the possibility of buying or using products that are dangerous; and upgrades the trait of the device manufactured by companies which aims to maintain a trusted and respected brand name in the market.

PAT equipment are valuable because they easily help companies save time and money by determining if a piece of equipment is faulty before turning it on.

PAT tests are supposed to be applied to all sorts of electrical equipment, such as fridges, freezers, washing machines, dishwashers, etc. These can hardly be described as portable as suggested in the main definition. Respectfully suggest that the entry be renamed to Portable Appliance Tester, and the definition amended to reflect that the item in question is a portable tester used for testing a large range of electrical equipment, some of which are portable, but could also be fixed, moveable, and hand-held, among others. 

Increased indispensability of Electronics in today’s life with steady advancement of technology and need of their proper functionality is driving the market of PAT testing equipment. PAT test is also popular as Business in a Box.

PAT tests are  regularly required by some equipment’s or at least once before they are being dispatched hence with growing market of electrical industry sale  of PAT Equipment’s will grow parallel. However, due to discrepancy in power supply and related voltage and current flow fluctuations can affect the performance of the appliance. To address this issue, PAT equipment finds its profound use in end applications.

Class 1 appliances (i.e. Freezers, Washing machines, microwaves) need Earth bond and Insulation testing. Class 2 appliances (DVD players, Television, Power tools etc.) need Insulation testing. Similarly, IT equipment such as Visual Display units, scanners and printers demand for PAT tests. Since, Insulation testing and earth bond testing are performed by PAT test equipment, hence helping in market growth of PAT testing equipment. 

However, nowadays, most of the electronic equipment are energy efficient and need less maintenance service hence effecting the market of PAT testing equipment to some extent. Moreover, the durability of PAT testing equipment would enable low sales and product movement for the said market.

 Downloadable PAT tester’s also known as Professional tester is the trending PAT tester as it can perform a whole range of tests using automated procedures and allow the logging/download of comprehensive PAT testing data.

Asia Pacific is expected to hold a prominent market owing considerable end user market size. Portable appliance testing is also preferred in Europe because of mandatory rules and regulation for electrical safety purpose leading to continuous sales demand of appliance testing thus incorporating Pat testing equipment. In Ireland, United Kingdom and Australia, electrical appliances are checked on regular bases contributing to PAT equipment market growth.

• Megger
• Seaward 
• Fluke
• Yokogawa Electric Corporation
• Keysight Technologies, Inc.
• Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co KG
• Viavi Solutions
• Advantest Corporation
• GOSSEN METRAWATT
• Benning
• Kyoritsu 
• Martindale Electric