There is something slightly awkward about writing a guide to a standard that does not officially exist yet. IEC 61010-1 Amendment 2 is still a draft, sitting at Committee Draft for Vote (CDV) stage, which means parts of it can still move before anyone signs it off. So treat what follows as a weather forecast rather than a finished map. The general direction is clear and the broad shape is set, but a handful of details will only firm up when the final version actually lands.
Why is IEC 61010-1 being amended now?
Why is the committee bothering at all? Mostly because the instruments this standard covers have changed almost beyond recognition. A modern test or laboratory instrument is often a computer in a sturdy case. Inside you will find dense electronics, an onboard database, heavy calculation, a network port, and more and more often a live cloud connection. All of that drags it into territory the original text never imagined, and into direct overlap with the standards written for IT equipment. The base standard itself dates from an era of much simpler boxes. A big part of what Amendment 2 is doing, then, is pulling IEC 61010-1 into line with the newer, better engineered hazard-based standards that have shown up since.
So why should you care? If you build test, measurement, or laboratory equipment, this is the most interesting thing to happen to your base safety standard since Amendment 1 back in 2016. The draft reworks risk assessment, pulls functional safety properly into the picture, tidies up insulation, and finally settles an old argument. When exactly does IEC 62368-1 take over instead? Below, we walk through the IEC 61010-1 changes that actually matter, point out what is still soft, and suggest what is worth doing now versus what can happily wait.
One more honesty note before we dig in. Wherever this article gives a specific number or clause, assume it is provisional. Committees change their minds, and this one still can.
So what does IEC 61010-1 Amendment 2 actually change?
Quite a lot is changing, though not in a way that rewrites the whole thing. Amendment 2 sits on top of the 2016 amendment rather than tearing up the third edition, so most of what you already know still holds. The new material clusters into a handful of areas worth knowing about.
Here is the short version of where to look:
- New definitions, including movable equipment, panel-mounted equipment, and a tidied-up meaning of hazardous live.
- Risk assessment shifting from “you really should” to “you must.”
- Functional safety and IEC 62368-1 documents promoted to normative references.
- Insulation tweaks, plus a renamed touch temperature clause that hints at a more outcome-based mindset.
- A gentle push toward IEC and ISO symbols over wordy text warnings.
None of that is cosmetic. Each item can change how you classify a product or how you test it, and the touch temperature rename in particular lines up neatly with the limits we picked apart in our piece on touch temperature limits.
When does your product stay under 61010-1, and when does 62368-1 take over?
This is the part most people came for, so let us give it room. For years, a lab instrument that also happened to carry a small computer, an Ethernet port, or a wireless module lived in an awkward grey zone. Was it measurement equipment, or was it IT equipment wearing a lab coat? Teams answered the IEC 61010-1 vs IEC 62368-1 question case by case, and not always the same way twice.
Amendment 2 finally draws the line, and it does so in two moves at once. IEC 62368-1 gets added to the normative references, so the two standards are formally aligned. The same standard also gets added to the exclusions, so equipment that genuinely lives inside 62368-1’s scope is carved out of 61010-1.
Here is the catch: this turns a comfortable default into an actual decision. You no longer get to assume 61010-1 covers everything inside the enclosure. If you make hybrid products, someone has to sit down and decide, on paper, which standard governs. The reasoning will feel familiar if you have read our explainer on the IEC 62368-1 product safety approach, because it leans on the same hazard-based logic. Sort the classification out first, since almost every other compliance choice hangs off that one answer.
What about those new risk assessment requirements?
If there is one structural change to circle in red, this is it. The IEC 61010-1 risk assessment requirements stop being advisory and become mandatory. In practice, the draft now expects you to identify hazardous situations properly and to show how your design pulls the risk back down, much like the hazard-based method the rest of the 62368-1 family already follows.
Single fault analysis gets stricter too. Reinforced insulation and other single means of protection now need explicit thought about the faults that could defeat them, rather than a quick hand-wave.
Fault test duration also changes, and this one quietly raises the bar. Equipment has to keep running until nothing else is likely to change. If a hazard might still appear, you keep going until it shows up or it clearly never will.
Two functional safety standards, IEC 61508 and IEC 62061, join the normative references as well. Read that as a signal: functional safety now sits inside the 61010-1 conversation, not off to one side as someone else’s problem. Teams that already treat risk work as a living activity rather than a box to tick will barely notice the change, which is exactly the mindset we argued for in our piece on moving risk analysis from formality to strategy.
When will IEC 61010-1 Amendment 2 be published?
Here is where the honesty caveat really earns its keep. Interest in IEC 61010-1 2026 is climbing, but the standard is not finished, so any date you see floating around is genuinely an estimate. Comments still have to be resolved and an approval ballot still has to run, both pencilled in for somewhere in 2026.
The BSI development tracker currently points at publication around December 2026, while the draft’s own proposed stability date sits at 2027. Take the date with a pinch of salt, because the international IEC version often lands a few months ahead of its European twin.
Publishing is only half the story over here anyway. EN 61010-1 Amendment 2 has to be cited in the Official Journal before it gives you presumption of conformity under the Low Voltage Directive 2014/35/EU. Until that citation appears, EN 61010-1:2010/A1:2019 is still the version doing the heavy lifting. The European listing usually trails publication by twelve to eighteen months.
Do you actually need to do anything right now?
Short answer: yes, a little, but nothing dramatic. This is a planned change, not a fire drill, and the draft already tells you enough to start thinking without throwing budget at a moving target.
A few low-risk moves pay off whatever the final text says:
- Run an eye over your product range and flag anything hybrid that the new 61010-1 versus 62368-1 line might reclassify.
- Pull out your risk assessment files and see how far they sit from a mandatory, properly documented framework.
- Keep half an eye on the ballot and line up recertification slots for products that are due a review anyway.
Notice that not one of those depends on a final clause number, which is precisely why they are safe to begin now. Worst case, you end up with a tidier portfolio and better risk files, which is hardly a punishment.
The takeaway
Amendment 2 is a real shift, but a manageable one. Risk assessment becomes mandatory, functional safety moves inside the tent, and the 61010-1 versus 62368-1 boundary finally gets a clear answer instead of a shrug. Publication looks likely in late 2026, with European harmonisation drifting into 2027 or beyond, so there is room to prepare without scrambling.
The smart play is the boring one: map your portfolio, tidy your risk files, and keep watching the ballot. Do that, and whenever the final standard does land, you will be reacting to detail rather than starting from a blank page.
