Bitcoin Forum

So a bit of a rant here, but has the physical quality of all HW wallets crap. Or is it just me?
I now have:
1) A relatively new (2023 Black Friday sale) Keystone 3 Pro with a 100% dead rechargeable battery. Only works when plugged in.
2) A ColdCard 3 with a bad screen
3) Old Ledger Nano X with the bad battery issue (yes it's old but....)
4) Two trezors with bad USB ports

I am NOT that hard on them. Unless I am signing something they stay in a locked safe.

And wait for it....the only one that I kind of killed myself was an old Keystone that when we moved offices I didn't remember where I put it and it (1) sat in freezing temperatures for a couple of weeks and then (2) wound up bouncing off a cement floor when it fell out of the box it was in since I didn't remember putting in in there. So now that one does not turn on either. But that I will put on me. I thought it was in the lockbox but I must have put it in box with other collectables when moving for some reason.

-Dave

Even though we often look at how efficient the cold storage of a hardware device is, it is important that physical build also adds to it. Similar to how a smartphone's protection case doesn't shield it entirely from potential screen damage, battery issues, or malfunctioning USB ports, the material composition of hardware wallets plays a significant role in their durability. I think that their manufacturers should consider making hardware wallets of materials stronger than reinforced plastics. Plastics while commonly used often lack the durability required especially when it is exposed to heat, light, air, or water. If there is a glass hardware wallet will you explore it. I found this project silica - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-silica/

This is the scourge of the modern world, when it is more profitable for manufacturers to sell physically low-quality devices, otherwise the company’s profits will fall (or will not grow), investors will not want to invest money, and the company will not prosper. This creates a vicious circle of capitalism. Agree, it is better to sell several HW devices to one user and get x3 profit from him than to sell one device for 10 years for x1 profit. Hardware wallet manufacturers are like sellers of shovels during a gold rush and they don’t need the gold (bitcoin) itself, but they need to sell as many shovels (hardware wallets) as possible. In order to sell more, it is more profitable to do it with lower quality, taking into account the planned and premature failure (of some elements).

How to deal with or avoid this? No way. In the case of hardware wallets, there is only one way out - to have several backup devices in case of failure and treat HW devices almost as consumables (be prepared for frequent breakdowns). Can add - stock up on spare parts for independent repair and restoration of hardware wallets, such as replacing batteries or displays. This is still cheaper than buying new devices.

I don't have that much experience, I knew that Ledger Nano S screen dies off (sooner or later) and the Nano X battery is a sad joke; but I somewhat expected the more expensive ones are at least a tad better built. Good to know...
On the other hand, the truth is that nowadays most products are built cheap and crap...  :(

"You get what you pay for". Maybe I'm not correct but it seems that the only company that pays attention to the quality of their products is Foundation.  Regarding Ledger. This company  grabbed my negative attitude  over two years ago when  their bought and paid for s+ model   refused to be powered up due to the bad USB cable  included into their original package.  

Foundation has it's own issues. I got one for somebody when they 1st came out and now it's just a dead as mine listed above. But, since it was not in my control at all I didn't include it in the list.

If I put in the list of all the people I know with hardware wallet issues theymos would need to get more data storage for the forum. OK, it's not THAT bad but still.

I have a little security token that a bank gave me (for free) that has to be 10 years old at this point that still works. No it's nowhere as complex as a HW wallet but still....

-Dave

I’ve got 2 trezor that always have an burnt screen issue despite I’m occasionally using it to transfer my Bitcoin and other shitcoin and for checking of my balance on monthly basis.

The plastic material used on Trezor including the screen display is very cheap while the price is almost equal to a china smartphone here that has much better durability. Their pricing is very high considering the the material use and the size of it as if their device is not mass produced.

Our original Founders Edition (first 1000 units) have lasted pretty well, but we've had some issues with internal display cable coming loose or damage to the monochrome display. We've given complimentary replacements for our latest Passport gen 2 to any Founders Edition customers who had issues. Our current gen is holding up extremely well and we use higher quality materials than anyone else in the space.

It comes down to how many issues with the screen
Even if it's only 20 devices out of the 1000 then that is a 2% failure rate.

---

It also comes down to the fact that it is about money potentially a lot of if.

I HAVE all my seeds, some people messed that up and would be having a bit of a freak out right now.

Now it's just an annoyance.

-Dave

People were mocking me when I was saying HW wallets were money traps and I see more and more "fuck ledger", "hw wallets suck" posts lately. The fundamentals are still the same as it was 10 years ago. HW wallets still suck. It is because paper wallets exist. If you want to stay "offline" you can do that if you create your keys on a laptop with no wireless card. If you want to stay "online", you can do that with a netbook/laptop too. If you want mobility, just write down your keys/seed words on a piece of paper and take care of it. If you think you can't secure a piece of paper, you shouldn't be using crypto in the first place. I am glad I've never spent any sats on these crap. I've done many stupid purchases but hw wallets ain't one of them.

Hardware wallets: A solution looking for a problem.

They are a convenience. I can have a wallet that lets me see incoming transactions, generate new addresses to give to people to send to me and so on and then with that same wallet be able to SEND transactions without ever having to expose my private key to an online device.
Yes multi-sig will work as will an offline signing laptop.

But those are more work then a hardware wallet when most of the time it's just click -> enter PIN -> sign -> done.

The old ones just seem to have been made better.
My ColdCard MK1 still works. My probably close to 8 year old keepkey still works. Up until the gravity bounce test my old Keystone was perfect.

-Dave

My guess is that you are just unlucky or you break them intentionally to complain about it on Bitcointalk. ;D

Am I the only one here who hasn't experienced any devastating issues with the hardware wallets I own? My Nano S is still working fine. I am talking about the physical device itself, before anyone mentions the data leaks. One thing I have noticed is that LL isn't displaying the correct balance for my crypto anymore, but that's because I haven't updated it in months, ever since I first heard about the Ledger Recover vulnerability.

My Trezor One is also working as it should. My only complain is the weird mouse issue that prevents me to work the Trezor Suite with my mouse connected to my laptop. But I am sure it's a compatibility issue with this mouse model. I am also not a fan of the small characters on the screen when confirming transaction data.

I am planning to add a third device to my personal portfolio soon - a signing device.

Perhaps the problem is that people bought such devices with the assumption that they will last a very long time and that they will work without errors - and it is no secret that today electronic devices are made to last as short as possible, because the goal of all manufacturers is to get you to buy a new device as soon as possible.

This does not surprise me at all, because if I buy a new mobile phone at least every 5 years, then I will most likely have to do the same with the hardware wallet. Unfortunately, everything has its expiration date, and after the pandemic, everyone is saving even more on the quality of production, which results in lower quality devices.

i do not trust this stuff too. you can use tangem , ballet or billfodl

What stuff exactly?

Tangem is closed-source. Why would you trust that if you don't trust some other solutions?

Ballet is not a hardware wallet. It falls under the paper wallet category regardless of what material it's made out of. This isn't a trustless solution. Someone else generated your private keys and placed those keys on the cards you buy. You have to trust those people not to do anything nasty, like keeping a copy of all generated private keys. It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened with these sort of things.

And Billfodl isn't a wallet in any type of form. It's a steel plate for backing up your seed phrase.

tangem has no battery. power provided on action via nfc. looks like they have their apps on github so idk what you meant closed source

ballet is not for big cash yeah. I mean device itself will not break. But will they go after you for five grand and then be on the run by whole team? i think they will not

so you can use billfodl as private key storage . and you can reuse it

The addition or lack of a battery doesn't add to the security of a hardware device. You have no idea how your keys were generated and using what entropy. Everything related to the Tangem is closed-source. More information is available on Wallet Scrutiny (https://walletscrutiny.com/?platform=allPlatforms&page=0&query-string=tangem). Unless you can build everything from the provided source code and the firmware is publicly available and verifiable, it's not open-source. Many closed-source projects have GitHubs, but they are not very useful for the actions I just mentioned.

If you take a look at Jameson Lopp's Billfodl stress test (https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/reviews/billfodl/), you will notice that it failed the heat and crush test. It didn't get a good grade.

General quality of most electronics are going down for some time, and hardware wallets are no exceptions.
Components are mostly made in China and they are probably trying to cut the corners  :P

From all hardware wallets I heard minimal complains for Trezor devices, only issue I have with them is short USB cable.

Why didn't you talk with Keystone support?
They should send you refund or new Keystone3 device.

All those are bad and closed source.
Satochip beats Tangem every time, it's open source, cheap and durable.

Billfodl is worthless crap and waste of money.
Rated as junk by Jameson Lopp, and it didn't survive his tests.
https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/reviews/billfodl/

EAL6 certified chip
Meet the most stringent safety requirements, particularly in the military sector

so they have blueprints of this military-grade thing uploaded somewhere right? hehe

No, they only need to have backdoor to it, and as tangem is closed source you dont know anything about it.  :P
And all other secure elements in hardware wallets have similar EAL certification, so that crap doesn't mean much really.
btw Satochip has NXP J3H145 and NXP J3R110 chips and that is EAL6+ also.

As I posted above I have 2 older devices that still work fine. (keepkey and ColdCard Mk1) but as I get more and play and use them the new ones just seem to be less well made.

---

I know of one other person who had the same USB issue with their Trezor, so it's not just me. But, I don't pay attention to the Trazor stuff that much.

Wanted to try a couple of things with the Keystone before taking it apart. I don't NEED another device, and would like to see how well the self destruct works on this one.
It was not that much $ since I got it as a black Friday sale.
 
-Dave

Don't fall for that 'military-grade standard' or 'bank-vault security' slogans that companies and individuals like to boast with. They are just empty words meant to draw attention and make them seem better and more important than they are. Despite all those bank-grade security systems, banks all over the world keep getting hacked and experience leaks all over the place. 

OK, but I am sure they will give you a refund if you contact them, since they have 2 year warranty.

However, if you do manage to disassemble it, please post some updates and photos for inside components.
It would be interesting to see what battery models they are using, and to compare difference with older Keystone internals.

So because the battery was not working I had it on a USB cable and forgot about it.

I then wound up knocking it off the desk and put a small crack in the screen but the touch part stopped working.
So here it is in all it's glory while waiting for a new screen and battery from some sketchy seller in China



https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/04/17/jJdD3.jpeg

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/04/17/jJXV8.jpeg

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/04/17/jJa6Z.jpeg

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/04/17/jJ2lf.jpeg

I kind of see your point, OP....but on the other hand, relative to HW wallets' prices I think buyers are probably getting what they're paying for.  If you look at the quality of a new Android or iPhone and then look at the price of either one of those, it's the same thing IMO.

That said, with the HW wallets I've played around with in the past I never really had any problems with them being cheaply made, like some piece of crap you'd order from Amazon, and you can get a decent one that works (like a Jade or Bitbox) without breaking your bank.  I guess this is one of those issues where your mileage may vary.  And I might add that even a Keepkey is pretty well designed and inexpensive, but unfortunately it's just a worthless black bricklet (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5226098).

Thank you for publishing a photo of the insides of Keystone 3. If you have a tester, could you measure the voltage from the element (in the yellow film), as well as from the main battery (1000 mAh), to understand why your Keystone stopped charging?

As they say on Star Trek.
"He's dead Jim. Grab his wallet, I'll get his phaser."

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/04/18/j19qT.jpeg

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/04/18/j17Lo.jpeg

Once it stops raining I am going to cut the leads off the lithium pack and see if I can put voltage into it. But I want to do it outside just in case something goes wrong.
The fact that the 3V battery is also just about dead is probably not great either. And it's soldered in.

-Dave

I was also surprised that in a practically new device this battery has a voltage of only 0.7V. It's quite possible that it failed and led to the controller refusing to charge the main battery. I don’t understand why it was necessary to use it in the circuit if there is already a much more powerful non-removable battery, which shouldn't be allowed to discharge to 0 volts.

That becomes part of the fun part now.

1) Did a bad 3v cause an issue?

2) Did the main pack go bad and internally and when it dropped to 0 cause an issue?

3) Did something else on the board go bad and just put a parasitic drain on the entire thing till it all stopped working?

4) Design flaw someplace?

5) Odd software bug that caused a lockup with the screen off that even though it was running at full speed?

6) Am I just cursed with these things?

7) Other?

-Dave

Are you sure that you didnt just brick the device and triggered self-destruction protection mechanism when you opened the device?

I am not expecting superior quality from $100 device but I would suggest having some kind of case protection for device.
Strange that Keystone didnt already release some accessories like silicone case, screen protection foil, etc. but you can create your own DIY protection stuff.

There is a issue with many modern Lithium batteries, especially if they are not used for a while.

When I put it back together and apply usb power it asks for a PIN so I'm guessing no the destruct did not trigger.
BUT....the touch stopped responding when it went off the desk and I never added a fingerprint so all I can do is look at it till the new screen comes in. So I could eventually put in a PIN and get nothing.

Finding the screen was a PITA since there was no part number that went to anything that I could find. Had to go to some LCD place in China that a friend of a friend knew kind of thing. No idea if it's even going to work. Just had the same connector and size and was IPS they sent me to their AliExpress link which have since gone away so either I got scammed or it was a link for just me to use.



I was using it, so at most it was 10 days.
It was used a day or 2 before this post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5459011.msg63794979#msg63794979 so at that point it did work and have enough power to turn on.
Would like to think I would have seen a low battery warning but who knows. So figure the 10th of March.

It was DEAD by the time I started this thread. So the 20th of March.

So from working to not even taking a charge in 10 days.

-Dave

Back of the screen....Can anyone find one?

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/04/19/jhcsz.jpeg

1) Poor battery voltage (0.7 volts) could be the cause of the issue if this voltage is insufficient for the normal operation of the device or its components, which may rely on the battery to support certain functions such as data storage or maintaining real-time clock.

2) If the main lithium battery failed and its voltage dropped to 0 volts, this could result in a loss of power to key components of the device, which in turn could cause problems with charging and overall operation of the device. Typically, charge controllers stop charging the battery if the voltage drops below a certain level. This problem occurred in the Ledger nano X, it was enough to disassemble the wallet, slightly recharge the built-in battery from an external source, and the wallet would start charging again.

3) It is possible that something on the device's circuit board malfunctioned, leading to parasitic leakage or a short circuit, which could result in device malfunction. It would be a good idea to install working batteries and check the currents with a tester.

4) Design error could also be a contributing factor, especially considering the prevalence of the issue as reported on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/KeystoneWallet/comments/18hm13d/keystone_3_pro_battery_not_charging/?rdt=52582

5) It could be a software bug that caused the device to freeze with the screen off. However, this doesn't explain the charging issue and battery condition, so it may have been just one of the problems with the wallet.

6) Unlikely :)

So this thing is fucked.

The battery pack is 100% dead and will not take any kind of charge.
Put it into a treadmill that has the same size and connector with a 1200MAH battery and let it sit since early this morning and nothing.
Tried to apply power directly to it and let it sit for 20 minutes and nothing.
OK fine...it's dead.

The next test. Put the treadmill battery pack into the keystone and it will not power on.
Apply USB power to the keystone and it comes on.

Check the leads going to the battery and it's putting out voltage but nothing works without the USB power.

Put that pack back into the treadmill that it came out of and it's charging fine.

Next step is getting a CR20xx battery and replacing the one that is only putting out 0.7v

At this point I'm probably not going to do that until when and if the replacement screen shows up.

-Dave

Most likely the charge controller has already marked the battery as faulty. The same thing happened when trying to change broken cells in laptop batteries.
To prevent the controller from marking the battery as non-working, when replacing the cell to be replaced, it is necessary to apply voltage from an external source to the place of the replaced cell and only then replace the faulty cell. But this will help only if the cell is changed due to partial loss of its capacity, if the cell is down to 0 volts, this method will not help.

Still does not explain the unit not powering up using the other known good battery other then the 0.7V issue on the coin cell.
Either way, the main battery goes into the fireproof bucket to be recycled and the keystone goes into the cabinet waiting for the screen.

Thanks everyone, will update when the parts come in.

-Dave

@DaveF, on the board  of  Keystone 3 you have presented I have noticed the strange (at least for me) stuff, namely Motor.  Never thought that any  hardware wallet could contain such gimmick.  Just of my curiosity, what it is for? And the other question. Have I understood correctly that 3 V battery is tightly soldered to board so that it can't be removed from its cell?

Yes the 3V is soldered to the board. But it looks like it can be desoldered easily enough and I can put another one on.
https://www.amazon.com/EEMB-CR2032-Non-Rechargeable-Batteries-CR2032-VBY2/dp/B095P2MJZV?th=1
The advantage doing it that way it's probably a bit cheaper then putting in a socket and running the risk of something going wrong with that.
The disadvantage is what you see, in that if you have to replace it more work is involved.
But since this is supposed to be a sealed unit that you never open I can see the logic in using the soldered in one.

The motor is for haptic feedback, it just gives a bit of vibration when you do some things.

-Dave

Small update:

Removed the old 3V yesterday and put in a new one. Less then 24 hours later it's down to 0.6V so there is some sort of massive draw on this thing.
Screen still has not arrived from China, no communication from seller. They said 4 to 6 weeks and we are just under 4 weeks now so I'll just keep waiting on that.

-Dave

Biggest power consumption should be from that big screen, but new lithium batteries need some time to start working properly with few charge-discharge cycles.

That is the ''beauty'' of ordering anything from China, you never know when something will arrive or not arrive  :P
My old multimeter device died recently, and I am looking something new to purchase... everything is made in China...

No, this was the round 3V lithium that I assume was for the NVRAM storage. Since I ordered a 10 pack I put in another one this time with some bodge wire leads so I could verify the power pull and yes, something is taking anywhere from 1/20th of a watt to about 1/4 of a watt.

And if you want a made in the USA multimeter look at some of the Fluke units. There are several that are still made in the USA. Be prepared to pay for that fact.....

-Dave

another one is benning , german made

So, the screen actually came in back in late July I just never had a chance to do anything with it until last week.
And......
The touch part does not work, but I think at this point it's the Keystone not the screen. I gave it to a friend who does some surface mount repair work and he is getting signal from the screen that he *assumes* is touch info since it's a data line that is only active when the screen is touched. 

Could be a bad screen, could be something wrong with the keystone, could be the screen & keystone are fine but the screen is still not compatible with the unit. But just gut feeling that it's the keystone itself.

It's still sucking dry the 3V battery and not charging the main battery even know good ones.

Just going to scrap it at this point.

-Dave

More quality device usually have better durability but not if they have integrated batteries like Keystone.
I like that new Trezor Safe 5 added GorillaGlass protection and I think this should be adopted by all hardware wallets.
If I had to choose one device than I would probably choose Passport by Foundation, it is made from quality materials and battery can be replaced easily.
Only thing I would add to Passsport is waterproof resistence, GorillaGlass, and maybe mask in accessories.

I found one interesting article from Athena-Alpha website about hardware wallet durability.
https://www.athena-alpha.com/how-long-do-hardware-wallets-last/

What would also be nice is for all of the wallet makers to publish the hardware BoM and schematic.

https://github.com/Coldcard/firmware/tree/master/hardware

Not saying coldcard is the answer but when having an issue like the touchscreen not working or the battery drain you could at least have a chance of figuring it out.
Now, it's just a guessing game.

-Dave

Nothing wrong with that, but keep in mind that each of those suggestions that you made would increase the final price of the hardware wallet. Foundations' Passport is already a relatively expensive device among those that are usually recommended in these parts.

That makes sense, especially if it's an open-source product or source verifiable. Perhaps there are other manufacturers who are already doing that. I remember seeing some schematics for the design of Passports, but there was also talk of similar information available for Ledger and Trezor.

Passport hardware wallet already have schematic posted on their github page, and everything is open source with Passport, unlike competitors.
Trezor devices also have something like this posted for older devices, and many people made their own DIY Trezors.
Last time I checked Bitbox02 had released this partially, but I don't know anyone who made DIY Bitbox.
However, I wouldn't recommend most people of doing this if they are not professionals.

Sure, but GorillaGlass is not that expensive anymore like it use to be, even cheap devices have it now.

There are a few makers, as pointed out that do have the info online.

And agreed that you should not build your own unless you know what you are doing. I was pointing out that shit happens and it would be nice to have a parts list so you could at least attempt repairs.

I gave up on fixing my Keystone, because I really don't care anymore with the battery drain issue. But, without a BoM & schematic it's all guess work.

Could probably fill the entire forum on the right to repair arguments.

-Dave

I guess you can still use Keystone device in combination with any regular power bank or connected with your computer.
This is not the first time I hear about issues with poor batteries in Keystone devices, especially if not charged and discharged on regular basis.
Not sure if Keystone devices would survive opening of the case because of their self-destruct mechanism.

Yeah, but with the touchscreen not working it's a paperweight.:


Once again, 100% my fault *I* broke it. But, without a part # to get the correct screen I don't know why the replacement didn't work. And without a schematic I could not have someone troubleshoot it the other way.
The flip side is at least it was cheap (Sub $90)

So you wind up with the question of do you get a better device (Say a Foundation Passport) or do you just get a cheaper device every year when they are on sale?

Or do you just use multisig for free and call it a day.....

-Dave


 

I am sorry if this was already covered in this thread (my old age is getting the better of me), but is anything written on the screen when you take it apart that could be a reference to the exact model number of the part? Based on that, you could perhaps find out which exact model to look for. What does customer support say?

Post with picture:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5489641.msg63966091#msg63966091
A few posts above that you can see the rest of it taken apart.
But no matter where I looked I could not get a screen that came close to those part #s with similar specifications. (one cross reference had it as a 14" laptop screen)

Customer support said that damage was not covered. No parts available for sale. I had already decided to take it apart so I didn't press the issue.

-Dave

To me, it is always been kind of understandable why some hardware wallet companies (specially the open source ones) need to cut costs when comes to the quality of the hardware they sell.
Because of the nature of their product being open to analyze for everyone, they can only make money out their hardware, that means selling their plastic for more it is actually worth in the market. Those hardware wallet manufacturers do not charge neither for their firmware updates, nor their update for their software interfaces, so they are encouraged to make their wallets as cheap as possible for them to produce, and then make money from the premium.

Perhaps it is not an approach which everyone likes, but it would be worse if they charged for firmware/software.

But no company saves on marketing, which goes a little against your theory about "good" producers with open source software. :)

They make money on the product as a whole, not just on the plastic, but also on the (recognition) of the brand. Basically, just like any manufacturer of anything, be it Apple phones or Ferrari cars (just don't tell me that this junk costs exactly that much).

It sounds like some of these manufacturers are saints. To me, they are all the same, because it is a business aimed at making a profit. Any business tries to reduce its costs and maximize profitability.

You just gave them the idea of ​​a monthly fee for using the device / firmware / access to the software. :)

Don't get me wrong, I am aware those are companies and they will have profit as their priority, cutting expenses and maximizing the inflow of money.
But I just wanted to point out the fact they cannot (for now) charge for software, because their software is supposed to be open for anyone to verify and make their own DIY wallets (there is a lot of tutorials on how they can be done on YouTube).

It is a business model I have noticed since I joined the world of open source hardware wallets, they sell their hardware at overprice because in the most of the cases, it is their only source of income. That explains why they are also encouraged to release new hardwares now and then, then more coin compatibilities and new features which their previous models did not have. Hardware is their main source of income.

Right, I forgot about that.
I guess you need to have screen protection for Keystone same like for smartphones, or make one yourself and order online with custom dimensions.
This is why I would like to see more hardware wallets adding Gorilla glass protection.