Thanks! The vetting was a process of of evaluation really. From initially being responsive, to shipping us demo units promptly, providing assistance when we had problems etc. When it came down to actually placing the order, we felt they'd already put in enough effort that it was genuine business relationship.

Wrt getting ripped off, we were advised very early on: "If you make anything in China, it will be copied". It's for that reason our software on the box is a very thin layer. The smarts are in the cloud and on the smartphone apps.