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⇨ Passport Batch 2 Review ⇦
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https://i.postimg.cc/bJR3gn1K/IMG_0157.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/xd6XPTc6/IMG_0171.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/J7DqYtjD/IMG-0268.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/LXhnQKP2/IMG_0169.jpg

Outline

• Summary (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421713.msg61304192#msg61304192)
  
• Review (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421713.msg61304196#msg61304196)
  
• New features (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421713.msg61304198#msg61304198)
  
• Misc (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421713.msg61304199#msg61304199)
  
• Setup walkthrough (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421713.msg61304207#msg61304207)
  
• Simulator instructions (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421713.msg61304211#msg61304211)
  

​
Summary
Following my overall satisfaction with Foundation Devices' Passport Founders Edition hardware wallet (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5382675.0), I also preordered their Passport Batch 2 device. To me, a 'batch' usually refers to a production run and not a broader overhaul / update of a device, so I sometimes called it 'version 2' or 'v2'.
However, a lot of things have actually stayed the same, both on the hardware and software side, and I was glad to hear that the passport2 firmware is supposed to be back-ported to Founders Edition. So it should not be obsoleted or superseded by Batch 2 after being around for just a year, which is good - especially at the price they charged for it. I'm not aware of the current status of this, though.

I will sometimes abbreviate Founders Edition as FE and Batch 2 as B2 in this review.
To summarize, I will just write the major changes here in a TL;DR type-section - details are down in the next posts.

Firmware used: v2.0.4

Positive Changes compared to Founders Edition :)
There are some major changes that almost directly addressed my criticisms of the Founders Edition, and prompted me to put down another ~$200 USD (incl. shipping - price info later) for this device.

• Better screen: This one has very strong backlight, is made from glass, has no scratches and comes with a protective foil on it. It's slightly inset to further protect it as well, and overall exceeded my expectations. I personally think a good screen is an essential part of a hardware wallet, so this is good to see.
  
• Better battery: Batch 2 uses Nokia-style batteries, which are almost as easy to find as triple-A's, almost as secure (no way to get supply-chain attacked since they're not hardware-wallet or device-specific) and way longer lasting than the FE's non-rechargeable batteries.
  
• Slimmer body: It's still a thick device, but definitely more pocketable than Founders Edition, which due to its small size stands out more than if it was, say, a leather wallet of the same thickness. Meanwhile B2 generally succeeds better in disguising through a feature-phone-form factor.
  

Negative Changes compared to Founders Edition :(

• Worse keypad: I first thought I got a defective unit, but after checking online, it seems that the keypad is partly meant to feel like this and they partly have had manufacturing problems. The buttons just have very little travel and thus no big, firm 'bump' that you 'press through'. It doesn't even feel mushy, as there's basically not enough travel for them to 'even mush'. I hope I can sufficiently visualize the feel of this new keypad. It works flawlessly and accurately, it just doesn't feel as nice to use to me. It's worth noting that it did improve a bit over time, especially the most used (numbers and navigation) keys.
  
• Worse camera: I know, I know - on the hardware side, they use the exact same OVM7690-RYAA (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2-hardware/blob/main/electronics/PCB/Assembly/PCBA-FD-KL-ASM-SUB-PCBA-MAIN-PRODUCTION-A3/Bill%20of%20Materials%20-%20CSV/BOM_FD-KL-ASM-SUB-PCB-MAIN_A3.csv) ... camera cube (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport-electronics/blob/f69d7ca24daf2933261ce89f13f7f60a2c596083/Camera%20Board/Assembly/Bill%20of%20Materials%20-%20CSV/BOM_FD-JL-PCB-CB_C1.csv). However, it appears to take slightly longer to scan QR codes; more details below. Update @ block 773177: Since the latest update, the issue is fixed. link (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421713.msg61638708#msg61638708)
  

​​​
Compared to last time, due to the fixed battery issue, much better screen and better form factor, I can definitely recommend the Passport Batch 2 as a daily-driver hardware wallet. It will work with your computer, phone, whatever you like, the battery life is long enough and it can just be recharged.
Price-wise, it costs less while being an overall better device with mostly just minor criticisms; as a Founders Edition customer I also got a nice discount, as described below under Pricing & Discounts.

In-depth review

Delays
Sorry, Foundation, but I have to bring this point up first, before actually starting the review. I do understand that there is a pandemic going on and all sorts of issues around the world slow the supply chain down. However, most of these factors aren't new; so one could have predicted / calculated them into the ETA. I'm fully aware that this was a preorder without guaranteed shipping date.

But instead of offering highly optimistic dates and pushing them back repeatedly, I would have preferred a: 'Sorry, we got caught off-guard and need 8 more months until completion'. If they would have managed to ship in 3 months regardless, I don't think anyone would have complained.. ;)

The shipping itself (to EU) was extremely quick and only needed 1-2 days through UPS. I haven't tried shipping to a PO box (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5413034.0), but didn't want to order to my home address either, so it took a bit longer to get my hands on it. Sorry for the long wait, everybody!

Personally, I will be more careful with company timelines and try to avoid a wording like here; instead I should have said 'they try to ship it in two months from now'. I hope that nobody who bought Batch 2 after my review, got disappointed by my above statement not having held true. Personally, I'm never in a rush, but I felt responsible mentioning the delays, just because I repeated their optimistic 2-month timeline.

Unboxing / what's in the box?
https://i.postimg.cc/QC4SGr4m/IMG-0151.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/3wmLyVNr/IMG_0153.jpg
In comparison to Founders Edition, you get the same SanDisk Industrial XI microSD HC 8GB card, however only a single one instead of two. Backups are encrypted, so I don't see a risk in keeping the single microSD with you on a daily basis (for updates and transactions on a device without camera), as long as you have the paper (or metal) backup stored in a secure location.
New this time, you get a double-sided USB-C cable (sadly no USB-A adapter included) to charge the device and two microSD adapters. One allows you to plug the microSD card into devices with USB-C, such as Androids or modern laptops. The other one is made for iOS devices with Lightning connector.
Even though transactions can be made simply through QR code communication, the inclusion of these adapters allows people to do complete firmware updates of the wallet from their phones (through the new Envoy app).

I believe this makes the device much more accessible since some people just don't have a proper computer.

You also get new Foundation Stickers, a set-up card that links to https://foundationdevices.com/setup/ and also a nice 24-word seed phrase backup card which I recommend to use and laminate. It also has a separate section for a 20-digit 'backup code' which encrypts / decrypts the microSD backups.
If you are using steel washers to back up your Passport (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5363596.0) (recommended!), this means 2 washers (if used double-sided) suffice to back-up that code.

A few short words about the unboxing. The device came in the same white box like Founders Edition (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5382675.msg59052891#msg59052891) with a simple, single security seal. The security model has not changed in this regard, so it makes sense. link 1 (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport-firmware/blob/main/SECURITY/SECURITY.md), link 2 (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/blob/main/SECURITY/SECURITY.md).
https://i.postimg.cc/WznCdK9q/IMG-0145.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/Y0bDrF91/IMG-0149.jpg
The inner box is physically well packed and protected by adhesive bubble wrap and shrink wrap.

Design & materials
The classic white - gold - black color scheme was kept and even extended to the box, a detail I enjoyed. It received golden, metal navigation keys, which I planned to mod and black-out, since I assumed cheap spray-painted plastic, but this metal finish (anodization?) is actually really well made, so I'll keep it. The overall build is still solid, back cover comes off easily and snaps on firmly with the same magnet technique as before.
The only detail I'd criticize is the use of piano black plastic inside of the small lip around the screen. It's most visible below the screen and of course, known to stop looking good after a while.
Why do car companies use piano black plastic as an interior material? (https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/aqwshm/why_do_car_companies_use_piano_black_plastic_as/)

Setup
Not a lot has changed from the Founders Edition setup procedure (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5382675.msg59052891#msg59052891). In general, the whole GUI is mostly a colorful version of the FE GUI, with the addition of being able to use the sideways buttons to change between 'accounts' (different derivation paths) and a few smaller menu changes.

The advantage of the microSD backup (that I mentioned above) over a seed phrase backup is that it will keep all settings, such as multiple accounts, multisig setups, and now new: Casa & Postmix setups.

For anyone really interested in the setup and general GUI look & feel, I have a 'walkthrough' (photo gallery) of every single step down below as well as instructions for installing the simulator and trying it out interactively for yourselves.

Battery
https://i.postimg.cc/wB4X0dvQ/IMG_0269.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/TP3jVPRP/IMG_0270.jpg
The elephant in the room with the Founders Edition was the battery. I should mention that while a set of regular Alkaline AAA's went flat super fast, repeatedly, during my initial setup and review process, over the last year I haven't had to swap them a whole lot. The whole workflow for signing a transaction from turning the device on to turning it off, can be done in under half a minute, keeping power consumption low.
It makes the usage more 'stressful' in a way though, and in the rare occasion of running out of battery on a holiday, you can't buy new ones, while you can always recharge a Li-Ion pack.

The Batch 2 uses default Nokia BL-5C rechargeable Li-Ion batteries (you all know them). They have been around for almost 20 years and millions of these are available on the market, so I think we're pretty future-proof with this choice - regardless of whether Foundation Devices sells or doesn't sell replacements, stops production, or even goes bankrupt.

I can confirm that the device even works without a battery; just plugged into a USB-C power source.

While keeping in mind that Founders Edition is supposed to be used with special non-rechargeable AAA Lithium batteries, I just assume most won't (due to price and availability) so I measured the battery runtime on a set of new Alkalines and the fully charged BL-5C that came with the wallet. Both devices were set to 100% full brightness, although the B2 'full brightness' looks at least twice as bright as FE.

On a fresh set of AAA LR03 batteries, at full brightness and mostly lying down doing nothing, the Founders Edition shut itself down after 27:25 minutes.
The Batch 2 managed to run for 4:33:03 hours on a full charge. I also did a lot of experimentation (for QR code scanning speed) for around an hour during that time.

Screen
My main criticism in terms of build quality on FE was the plastic screen; flush with the device, which came scratched (though it didn't pick up extra scratches that I noticed). B2 has a recessed glass screen, which is also much brighter and has colors. It is more pleasurable to use and harder to damage. Big improvement here, I really love it!

Only drawback from Founders Edition is that it appears to be a regular IPS LCD:
FD-KL-ASM-FG-DISPLAY-LCD-IPS-2-INCH (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2-hardware/blob/main/bill-of-materials/FD-KL-BOM-UPPER-LVL-REVB.csv) instead of the security / auditability-focused Azumo/Sharp 12616-06_T3 (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport-assembly/blob/main/Bill%20of%20Materials/BOM.csv) monochrome display.
I may be wrong about this, but most regular IPS LCDs usually come with a black-box driver chip. Hopefully, Foundation Devices were able to avoid that here, but I couldn't find detailed information about it.

Camera
Like the screen, the camera was recessed, which should protect it from damages. Unlike the screen, the module used remained the same. I mentioned it in my summary, but unfortunately the new firmware appears to detect QR codes slower than FE. It works very well when the QR code's resolution is not too high (more codes, less data per code), but struggles with more complex images that the old device handles like a champ.

I hope that Foundation Devices @zherbert @FoundationKen look more into this; fast readout of PSBT is what makes or breaks the Passport, in my opinion; and I must say that it's more reliably fast to use the Founders Edition, especially when playing around with different wallets.

In general, my devices (PC, phone) are better at reading out QR codes from either Passport's screen when setting the QR code size to 'largest' (at the expense of scanning more of them), but such a setting is actually lacking in the different wallet software I tried.
So, while it would be great for both Passports to perform equally (given same hardware), improvements to host software would also be welcome. Foundation Devices' own software (Envoy) has a good QR code density though; more on it later.

New firmware features
Multisig
https://i.postimg.cc/MK6cw4s3/image.png
Multisig wallets were supported by the Founders Edition when I wrote my first review, but I didn't try it; so it's only a 'new feature' for me.
I set up a 2-out-of-3 multisig in Sparrow using Econoalchemist's guide (https://econoalchemist.github.io/Foundation-Passport/09%20MultiSig.html). Instead of a ColdCard, I used my two Passports and a local wallet as third keystore (like him). It worked like a charm and was super easy to set up and use. Highly recommend it.

Casa
https://i.postimg.cc/bvhLCm55/image.png
It is now possible to use the Passport with Casa (https://keys.casa/), which then shows up as an extra 'account' next to all your regular accounts.
In addition to the regular 3 options, there is a 'Health Check' and a 'Connect to Casa' option; I haven't tried those though, since I'm not a Casa customer / user. I don't think this option is very important / interesting for regular readers of the 'Development & Technical Discussion' section, anyway, but good to know that it's supported, in case you're looking for a device for a friend who's interested in the service Casa is offering.

CoinJoin Postmix (Whirlpool)
Similar to the Casa option, when activating the 'Postmix' account under 'Settings > Extensions > Postmix', you get a new account on the main page with a specific derivation path (m/84'/0'/2147483646'). Its specialty is that it allows to re-mix / join deposited coins with Whirlpool without paying fees over and over again.
https://i.postimg.cc/7PG7zgsJ/image.pnghttps://i.postimg.cc/fRJhWRTs/image.pnghttps://i.postimg.cc/ryj6SrDc/image.png

Envoy App
Together with Passport Batch 2, Foundation Devices also released their Envoy (https://foundationdevices.com/envoy/) host software, for Android and iOS.
It's mostly a bare-bones wallet without multisig support or any bells and whistles, but it's more than good enough to get started and the killer feature is the ability to update the Passports through it (https://bitcointv.com/w/eJJobPKd89hEmKocToSTgg), using the included microSD adapters.
It was a necessity for me that it doesn't have push notifications or any other network calls except the ones going directly to the Electrum server - which can be specified by the user; including Tor support.
There is a section with their tutorial videos, but opening those shouldn't leak anything about your device, seed or addresses and it's obviously all open-source (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/envoy/).

Misc
3D-printable custom back cover anyone?
This is the original STEP file for the back cover. I'll actually try getting it resin-printed in black or maybe doing it myself with traditional FDM printing, to get a cleaner all-black look. The beauty that is open-source hardware!
https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2-hardware/blob/main/mechanical/STEP%20Files/FD-KL-COVER-REAR-REV-D.stp

Privacy policy / data handling
The TOU (https://foundationdevices.com/passport-terms/) and privacy policy (https://foundationdevices.com/privacy/) haven't changed since my last review. I appreciated that they're relatively simple to read (content and webpage layout); however a few items in the privacy policy stood out to other Bitcointalk users.

We got a reply on such a question by Zach Herbert below; he also mentions that they self-host a lot of services and delete data much faster than most other wallet manufacturers.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5382675.msg60928948#msg60928948

Pricing & Discounts
During the preorder phase, Batch 2 was priced at $199 (without VAT or shipping). As a Founders Edition owner, I got a 21% discount, bringing down the price to just $158 USD, which is why I immediately bought it. Basically half the price of Founders Edition.

Right now Batch 2 is listed for $259 USD, which is still less than FE, is supposed to ship very shortly (this same month) and is overall better in all aspects (except maybe the camera bug).
I believe you could get $10 off through a referral code, but I didn't want to look more into this (whether referrals still exist or not, how to do it...) and getting my own one, such that I won't be financially influenced in my review. In the rare case that you can't find such code, you can DM me and I'll have a look; would donate or otherwise give-away my reward, though.

Edit: I realized today that the following deal is still up. Foundation Devices gift cards with 10% discount.

The other day, I came up with an idea: Since Founders Edition is still a very good device, the R&D has been completed and paid for, how about selling a low-cost (plastic) version of it at a lower price? Similar to the iPhone 5C back in the day (and similar instances) where a still relevant device gets re-released with lower material cost and lower price. Something like $150 would be very competitive in the current hardware wallet landscape.

Questions to Foundation Devices
In case @zherbert or @FoundationKen read this, I'd highly appreciate if they could answer these questions.
(1) Is the camera issue internally known / worked on already? I noticed big changes in the camera codebase, and highly suspect a software bug.
(2) Could you elaborate on your offline data storage solution and who can access it?
(3) Are any discounts planned this year (e.g. for the black friday weekend)? ^{[Edit: 1. December 2022 - this is obsolete now. ;)]}

My improvement suggestions / requests

• Look into the slow QR code verification / check why FE did it better.
  
• Bring back seed phrase verification (having to type it back in, after writing it down) from FE.
  
• Show 'Security Words' at Login by default (like on FE).
  
• Don't reset 'Network' preference to 'mainnet' after a reboot.
• Release screen protectors and silicone protection cases (for everyday usage).
• Release a low-cost version (e.g. full plastic as described above) of Founders Edition.
  

Detailed setup / walkthrough photo gallery
https://i.postimg.cc/NMMf1TS8/image.png
I was able to easily take these screenshots using the simulator from Foundation Devices' v2.x.x series of firmware for Passport repo (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2) that, should also be able to run on Founders Edition (mono parameter instead of color).

Passport v2.x.x Firmware Simulator
The instructions for installing it on a fresh Ubuntu box are as follows (copied from my post here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5382675.msg61034068#msg61034068)).

[1] Get Ubuntu 22.04.1 ISO and spin up the VM.
[2] Update all packages (after all, this is a fresh Ubuntu install).
[3] Install git and dependencies
[4] Clone repository
[5] Install Rust & Cargo (never hurts ;D) to then install 'Just' (command runner).
[6] Create work and snapshots folders (not sure why they don't exist) Edit: added microsd folder which emulates an inserted microSD.
[7] Start simulator (this builds the firmware)

---

To get the camera working (kinda needed for supply chain validation), install OBS with its virtual camera feature, as well.
[8] Install QT6 dependency and OBS itself.

Then, start OBS, add an image of whatever QR code and make it nice and big. Images below. Lastly, restart the simulator.
If you want to reset the simulator, delete the work folder that you created earlier and re-create it (or delete all files within it).

https://i.postimg.cc/4N95CWWt/image.png https://i.postimg.cc/j5TFkGHM/image.png
Left: OBS setup steps; Right: How it should look like with everything set up correctly. Notice the QR code rather big and the Virtual Camera running.

https://i.postimg.cc/k55ryVmT/image.png https://i.postimg.cc/7hRbxvNk/image.png
Left: Camera view of Passport simulator. The QR code is a bit too large, therefore no successful scan. Right: As soon as I resized it a bit, such that it fits inside the camera view, it is scanned and the words are shown (I believe always the same hardcoded words in the simulator during Supply Chain Validation, since it doesn't obviously contain the actual secret).
Decoding addresses and transactions should work correctly, though.

Excellent review. I loved reading it!

Too bad there is only one paper card for the seed and backup codes. The competition includes 2 or 3. The microSD backup doesn't back up the seed as well, does it?
The change of batteries to rechargeable ones with over 4 hours of stand-by life is a welcome edition.

I have some questions.
You mentioned that Batch 2 uses a screen with a closed-source driver chip. What's the worst case scenario there?
Doesn't Batch 2 have any type of seed verification after the initial onboarding process?

Thanks for your quick feedback. :)

Good point; compared to microSD cards, it should be super cheap to ship one more paper backup card. The microSD backup does include the seed phrase, although encrypted with a 20-digit numerical code.

I'm not sure that they use such a chip; it would be great to hear what LCD they use exactly and how it's driven.
The idea with the Sharp display on the Founders Edition is similar to what https://betrusted.io/ are doing; where there's just no 'trusted' component. Also makes it easier to do a hardware implant attack (e.g. chip replacement) when a driver chip exists. Otherwise, what are you going to replace, right? ;)

Unfortunately, you are not asked to input back the seed, which is why I mentioned it as an improvement request.
It doesn't look like an oversight (e.g. 'commented it out during testing'), since the SeedCheckUX (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport-firmware/blob/main/ports/stm32/boards/Passport/modules/seed_check_ux.py) file is missing completely from the new repo.

A very detailed review containing important clarifications, which certainly deserves praise. Reviews of this level and quality are rare and only in those cases when the user is really passionate about this device, like a Passport. Great job n0nce.

Undoubtedly, Passport turned out to be successful and has many advantages over hardware wallets from other manufacturers. One of which, in my opinion, is a removable battery that can be replaced if the battery is suddenly dead and immediately used, which makes the device autonomous. Therefore, you can immediately buy another BL-5C battery (or pick up from your old Nokia phone) and keep it on hand for such cases.

Thanks to n0nce's reviews, I have been watching passport for a long time, which I also like (not as a user). I hope this project will develop further and improve its devices for the benefit of the crypto community.

I was looking forward for this review for quite some time n0nce, it's awesome to be able to finally read it! As for the device, FE2 improved in the topics that I hoped (mostly battery + screen), but it's sad to hear that the keyboard has a "bland" touch. Granted, for sure it's great that they improved the other two areas, but I was hoping that the keyboard and camera would still be left untouched regarding quality and "feeling", but it seems that isn't the case. The positive news that I can take from this is that this mostly can be solved by a future software update (or at least I hope so). This particular paragraph activated my "paranoid" sense:
I know that the odds are very, very slim, but assuming that someone got a hold of the device, could they extrapolate, based on the "used keys" on the keyboard, your PIN code? I know the odds are slim, but this idea just came to my mind ...

I still think that one downside of the device is the premium price - If I were to purchase one I would be looking at 330 € (Model T would be around 270 € with support to multiple cryptocurrencies) - but I reckon that the only way to deal with the high price would be to have a manufacturing unit somewhere in Europe and for sure that isn't the plan in the short term. Like you said n0nce, the best option would be a FE2A option (similar to the Pixel A line) where they would go down on the materials to the bare minimum to try and still deliver a sustainable device.

Once again, thank you for the superb review!

PS: @zachherbert is quite active on Twitter so it would be really awesome to see him reply (or even promote!) your thread over there. Let's hope he manages to come here!

To be honest, I wouldn't even necessarily say that the quality of the keypad got worse; the buttons even feel more durable, it's just a different type of actuator probably.
Camera is untouched, so the differences should be down to firmware.

Good question, didn't cross my mind. From my experience, the difference in key feel is not nearly as drastic that you could tell which keys were pressed more often. Maybe the navigation keys also just feel better since they are separate from the keypad. Nothing to be concerned about, though.. ;) I probably also got used to it a bit.

Agreed; the price is definitely high. Surprisingly, it's hard to find hardware wallets with open-source firmware and hardware, plus QR air-gap and all of the other Passport features. No real competition except the Passport Founders Edition. I suppose that manufacturing in the US is also costly, but that also increases my personal confidence in the device.
You do feel that these devices are no China products; the premium price tag reflects in a premium build quality. My FE looks just like it arrived roughly a year ago.

If you can live with a closed-source hardware platform though, I believe that Keystone would give you a lot of wallet, for under $200, even under $100 with current discounts. I may actually try it out myself; not sure.

I would definitely appreciate a 'lite' version or a kind of mass-produceable (injection molding for all parts) version of either Passport at a lower price point. Keep in mind both of these have a metal interior piece that gives it structure and heft, which could be replaced. Maybe a monochrome LCD would be cheaper as well, and the device could even be offered without battery, in case you already have some BL-5C kicking around. I believe shipping devices with batteries is also more expensive, so another area to potentially cut some costs.

This is first time i've heard type of this battery. While this battery is indeed popular (based on search result on local online shop/marketplace), i have few small concern about obtaining replacement battery. For example,
1. Which seller sell good quality battery? I know i should avoid battery which cost less than $1, but expensive doesn't always mean better since it could be overpriced battery.
2. Which brand should i pick? Battery with brand "Nokia" (i use double quote since i don't know whether it's bootleg or not) or third-party brand (vizz, xtrikeme, sailsway, hk, etc.).

I don't have electronics/electrical engineering so i can't simply seek batch 2's schematic and check whether it has strong protection against defective battery.


Does this feature refer to mixing on Whirlpool protocol/Sparrow wallet?

Good question; I'd probably use a generic BL-5C, probably from a local seller so at least it has to have CE compliance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking).
I'd really recommend Foundation Devices to start offering 'accessories' in their shop; it's a good way to keep revenue flowing in, after a user bought your product. Especially for premium products (like Passport) that customers don't want to replace every year.
I'm talking: replacement BL-5C batteries, industrial microSD cards, replacement Lithium AAA's (for FE), replacement back-covers in different colors (customization), screen protectors and protective cases for everyday usage.

Yes, exactly! I should specify that more clearly, thanks.

As someone who is currently using a keyboard with a short travel distance, I would've included it in the category of positive changes ^{[it comes down to personal preference]}.

The "latest firmware (https://foundationdevices.com/2022/11/passport-version-2-0-4-is-now-live/)" was supposed to improve QR code scanning, so are you implying that ^{[apart from the better performance on FE]} you didn't notice any improvement from the previous firmware ^[v2.0.3] or it became worse?
^{- Out of curiosity, is there an option to downgrade it (directly or through the Envoy app)?}

---

BTW, this is hands down one of the best HW reviews in this sub-board ^{[I salute you]}.

True; to me it was negative, but I may need to reclassify it as 'Neutral'. ;) Do keep in mind that the travel distance of any such small devices' buttons is always way smaller than even what you find on low-keytravel laptop keyboards.
I guess if that's really important to someone, they could check out one of the various Bitcoin conferences that Foundation Devices participate in, to try it in person before buying.

Yes, 2.0.4 improved it a little bit; I actually used the 2.0.4 beta from upstream GitHub (using the 'upload developer public key' feature), very early on, so this review is completely based on v2.0.4 already.
Downgrading works; at least from 2.0.4 beta to 2.0.3 (release) worked without issues.

Since you mention: 'directly or through the Envoy app' - the upgrade process is always the same, there is no or. ;) Either you download the new firmware with a PC and copy it to the microSD card, or use the Envoy app for that, which does the exact same thing. After inserting the microSD into Passport, it finds the file, verifies it and upgrades to it.

Thanks. 0:)

@n0nce  this was well written amazing review of Passport batch2 hardware wallet, and it took me some time to read everything.
Hands down I think this is currently one of the best open source Bitcoin hardware wallets available in market.
Some people could complain about lack of support for shitcoins, but this is only positive thing for me.
Compared to it's older brother Coldcard, this is big step in right direction in every way, and solid improvement from Foundation edition.
I can't wait to see what device is Foundation going to release next.

For sure they need to offer cases for devices, in same way like most people use cases for their phones.
Same thing with batteries, and they could even earn extra sats for selling this, just look what Trezor is doing.

Great review, thanks for that.

Also got my Passport 2 a few days ago and really like it.

One very positive thing that stuck out to me:

This is the first hardware wallet with which it's not a complete pain to type in words like seed etc. Even though it has a number pad just like the coldcard, it uses a different system and it's very fast, like typing text on an old nokia phone.

A few things I would like to see:

Seed XOR and BIP 85

Also, is there any reason there has to be a ten account limit?

Agree with everything! Alone the fact that it has no 'integration with centralized exchange X' or even an overly complex host software at all, should give users confidence that they didn't waste time and developer attention into such features and instead focused on making a secure Bitcoin storage and signing device.
I'd still like to see them get external security audits done; not sure if they've done anything like that. It's usually quite expensive and with FE only having sold 1000 units total, I don't know that you can afford that at such small scale. But this is a security device so it should be a very high priority, now that they (hopefully) sell lots more devices with Batch 2 and onwards.

Exactly; it's a win-win situation. I'm suggesting it for both making users more comfortable carrying such a device with them, and basically replacing the need for storing keys on their insecure mobile devices (phones / laptops). And at the same time it would keep cash flow coming after Foundation sold someone the device, which is always good for the company. I'd really like to see them succeed long-term. Other manufacturers like ShiftCrypto (BitBox), for instance sell backup cards, sealed bags and small goodies which I can definitely see people buying little by little, the more they dive into Bitcoin, secure storage, secure backups and multisig.

That's good to know! One more Bitcointalk user to potentially discuss new features or issues as we keep using this device.. ;)

Good point! I believe I mentioned it in my Founders Edition review (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5382675.0); I totally agree with that. I'm way more comfortable using a more complex device password and more complex passphrase on this, due to being so comfortable and quick to enter them.

Do you know whether they're working on that yet? I'll have to check if they have a blog or Twitter post about that.

There is? I haven't tried creating more than 10 accounts; good to know, though.

Not that I know of, this is just something from coldcard and that's what I've been primarily comparing it to. I really like the "feature rich" approach of coldcard.

Passport tries to be simpler and succeeds at that but they could include some more advanced features safely tucked away in the "danger zone".

What it also really misses even more are pin options, like "duress pin" etc.


Yes, interestingly Sparrow wallet has the same ten account limit. At least Passport allows any derivation path whereas on Sparrow you're stuck with 0 to 9.

While it is definitely simple to set up and use, it also has 'advanced features' that CC doesn't have. For instance the (very convenient) QR code communication feature and CoinJoin postmix with Whirlpool.
I'm not sure that the lack of 'duress pin' or self-destruction pin are left out for simplicity, but rather because they think it's a bad idea to have / use one.

So you can create derivation path 0', 1000', 6969' on Passport, but only 10 of them in total, while in Sparrow you can only go up to 9'. Good to know (though I'm not sure why someone would need that).

I think this is available only on ColdCard hardware wallet, and they have everything in CommonClause license, so I am not sure what license is for Seed XOR.
We all know they don't like anyone using their code, and some other wallets are using other ways to split seed words with Shamir Secret Sharing (Trezor T, Keystone, etc).
I think that multisig is much better than both of this seed splitting implementations.

This could be memory limitation related thing, but it's best to confirm this with developers.
I know that Trezor (and I think ledger) also have limited number of accounts you can create.

I think we all realize that you need to make big sponsorship and partnership with lot of third parties if you want to have big sales like ledger.
In return ledger is going to send them everything they ask, and they will add any shitcoins they pay for.
Passport only supports Bitcoin, so ponzi scammers like Sam Bankman can't promote their crap.

Yeah, it's a ColdCard invention, but I think only the code is protected by the CC license. Other manufacturers would need to reimplement it; even though it will do the same thing and run on the same (or similar) chip, they'll need to rewrite it. I don't understand the sense behind that either.

Yes, especially with Taproot. Which is a standardized protocol; so you're not 'vendor-locked' and profit from all other benefits of such a standard. Therefore I'm hoping for quick Taproot integration on Passport. Especially since multisig is so fun to do with 2 or more Passports... ;)

I believe and hope that businesses can be successful without selling out and giving away customer data & privacy.
Honestly, with this angle, it's not too bad that Foundation Devices can't offer a Black Friday discount. You do get a T-Shirt, though!


I like this comment that they reposted:

Nah, I don't want to wear T-shirt like this, but I think they already gave a big discount to everyone who participated in Batch2 presale, and you had to wait a long to to receive it ;)
I do like discounts and I think that Keystone did a great job this season of Black Friday, maybe because they started working on new generation device so they need founding.
I am excited to see how hardware wallet market will change in future, with Block wallet and Trezor Gen2 wallet releases probably coming out in next year or two.

I don't wear Bitcoin-related shirts either (terrible opsec), but it's a nice gesture and I prefer them putting the money to good use.
Large discounts also sometimes feel like you're overpaying on the device on non-deal days / parts of the year and make the device seem more overpriced.
I.e.; if they sold it for $200 during this weekend, you could come to the conclusion: 'If they can make a profit off a $200 device, why can't they always sell it for $200?'

Like I posted in the other thread, FD's EU reseller is getting rid of Founders Edition units, to make space for Batch 2 stock; such sales do make more sense.

This shirt doesn't have any Bitcoin prints on it, it looks more like you came back from the past and promoting some old Nokia style phones  :D

https://i.imgur.com/RYHR0UJ.jpg

Just a side note - some companies do have a marketing strategy to run some campaigns at a loss. See the recent Pixel phones that have lower price tags than similar phones due to the fact that they prefer to loose some money on each sale but reach a wider audience and attract more customers to their platform. There's also the example where supermarkets have the so called "loss leaders"[1].

Still, we're talking about corporations that are already well setup in their organization to support these losses - which isn't the case for the Foundation devices. I'm really liking their products and mission, I hope they keep walking the same path!

---

[1]https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lossleader.asp (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lossleader.asp)

Does one account need to be funded before you can create a 2nd and 3rd one or can I simply jump to the 7th one if I wanted to? Maybe if at least one address from the first 10 accounts has been funded, you get a new set of 10 accounts or something like that. But if not, I am sure that adding a passphrase opens up new account possibilities.

I haven't heard of such limitations with Ledger. But what I mentioned above is true. An address from native segwit account #1 needs to be funded before you can create native segwit account #2, etc.

I'm pretty sure you can just remove an 'account' (just a different derivation path) - no matter if funded or not - and add a different one. You can always add the removed account back and sign transactions from it.

n0nce had a good idea that Foundation could make big discounts for improved Foundations edition.
This could be similar like Google is doing with their Pixel line, they have regular and pro version, but later they release version A that usually has cheaper materials and it's smaller in size.
I think that Samsung phones has a lot of budget phones they lose money on, but biggest profit is coming from their flagship models.

Little PSA here. I already mentioned that you can get basically 10% off by buying CoinCards (https://coincards.com/us/product/foundation-online-gift-card-electronic-delivery/) gift cards for the Foundation Devices shop.
Now they're also available on the (probably more popular) Bitrefill (https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/foundation-international/) website and in the The Bitcoin Company (https://nitter.net/thebtcco) app.

Note that in the latter 2, that's in form of a 'cashback', which (as far as I know (https://bitrefill.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402367478802-Can-I-withdraw-my-rewards-)) cannot be withdrawn.
So you'd spend e.g. $260 on a Passport and get $26 in Bitrefill rewards balance that you could use to buy an Amazon gift card or whatever you like. You don't just get to pay 234$.

Also do note that anything I post is unsponsored, unaffiliated, and I gain nothing from these links (hover / copy to check ;)). Just want to make sure in case it's not obvious.. 0:)

I just had a look at what's been going on in the GitHub v2.0.5 developer branch (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/compare/dev-v2.0.5) and it seems they're working hard on the camera, but in general put in a ton of work, comparing to v2.0.4.
Yet another point for open-source: you get to see what they're working on, what they changed and what kind of progress they're making.

• We can see here (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/commit/894089ff0deb1f7a9d5ef4bb670802daa435f58f) that various changes to the camera parameters, like resolution and framebuffer have been made.
  
• Some work on the mono version of the firmware (for the Founders Edition): here (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/commit/4ae44c4c6af824a5b4fd9e2eb8a96deff4056587), here (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/commit/ddbaa0729d2f36bfac102b2e35855b9f447ba4cd) and many other commits.
  
• I don't have the full overview of the codebase, but it seems to me that this (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/commit/8b07c32debc8b63a661f5d107e158847be902930) will allow either users to zoom in / out or it's just to make changing camera size easier in the software. Anyhow; more camera work being done.
  
• It will also be possible to modify the screen brightness (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/commit/bbc2edc76f0a8c8e15666ba1d0ff791937a4a61f) of any QR code. I believe so far, that only worked for transactions (PSBTs), but not e.g. for the setup data that you can send to your software wallet client through a QR.
  
• It also seems like you will be able to navigate from the last card in the menu to the first, without going back manually through every page, by 'looping' (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/commit/2e6f56e1d4115ece8465c06718dc6c6a264fba60) over.
  
• There is also some new documentation (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/commit/a4ba805eadf88b424871c97ce36343a138181f30) about generating a developer public key and uploading it to the device; I did it previously on my own and it wasn't hard, but I can see how this comes in handy if you've never done such thing before.
  
• I'm not a fan of how they use printf - debugging (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/commit/ff093fe2d15f3076ad6accb3be9f8d941d6d27b0)! :D
  
• I hope this (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/commit/8a8ce31f1891aeaaad24428a1621f3abed73aba1) was just for debugging and will be changed back immediately. :o Why would they switch to MCU RNG instead of using the Avalanche noise circuit?
  
• Apparently, you will also be able to view your active seed phrase when displaying your seed words: here (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/commit/0e504fe925b62f6ccd6baa2b8d268620e03b6066).
  

  
There are also tons and tons of bug fixes; most of the bugs mentioned I've never experienced, though. I'm still excited to follow the progress and see how the v2.0.5 release will turn out. :)

Maybe they saw your review and listen to suggestions you gave them ;)
How is your Passport camera working now with batch2 and for scanning QR codes?
They are probably trying to improve something and maybe even preparing for some new batches that are coming in future.

I didn't get a reply to my questions (in the start post), so I'm not sure. :D

The camera is always the same; the review was made with v2.0.4 and the v2.0.5 hasn't been released yet. I will try it whenever they upload a beta release (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/tags).

However it was somewhat fixed with the latest Sparrow release (https://github.com/sparrowwallet/sparrow/releases/tag/1.7.1). The animated QR codes contain less data each, making it easier for the camera to recognize them.

I hope that they can do a 'budget batch' next and keep selling Batch 2, focusing on polishing the firmware instead.

Thanks, n0nce.  I've been waiting for your review of Batch 2, and you did a great job.


It's been over a month since I played with the simulator, and I don't remember if I messed around with passphrases.  Is entering passphrases similar to typing on a keypad the way we used to when texting on flip phones?  I know there's a "predictive" text feature for entering seed phrases, but those words are drawn from a list so I don't imagine that would work for passphrases with dispersed capital letters and special characters.

This is actually one of the few complaints I have about the ColdCard; to type in passphrases you need to scroll through the whole alphabet, numbers, and the list of special characters to get a passphrase entered.  It can take several minutes to do so carefully with my more complex phrases.


This is weird, but it begs the question: What constitutes an "Account?"  Most software and hardware wallets create accounts by taking the next derivation path in the sequence, but then later you mentioned that the Passport allows custom derivation paths.  Is there a limit to the number of passphrases you can use?

Sorry for taking so long! ;)

It's not T9. So, not 'predictive'. I did have phones that either didn't have T9 or where it didn't work; therefore this method of clicking a key multiple times to reach the desired letter, was familiar to me. You have a dedicated key that cycles the keyboard through lower-case, upper-case and numbers.

An account is just another derivation path. You can choose any derivation path you like, but only have 10 accounts 'active' at one time. If you don't need one anymore, you can delete it and add another one. The 'deleted' account can obviously be retrieved back by opening a 'new' account with that same old derivation path.

I'm pretty sure this is to make the device more responsive. I noticed that I can sign a transaction for my second account even when opening the camera from the first account page; probably, the device checks by itself which private key is needed to sign the PSBT. This makes it more convenient / compensates for user error. However, I can imagine that if you allowed to have hundreds of accounts open at one time, it could slow down the process, due to having to find the right account to sign the PSBT in question.

I don't think so, no.

No problem, I wasn't in a hurry anyway.  I'll be ordering one this month, but realistically I don't need it.  I've been really pleased with my ColdCard which I purchased the past summer, and I also have both flavors of Trezor's wallets, so I feel pretty confident in my security.  The Passport does have some features which I would appreciate and can easily see replacing the ColdCard as my daily driver.



Sounds like the same way passphrases are entered into the ColdCard.  It's not the worst thing, but I do have some long, complex passphrases and I am prone to making errors.  :-\



That makes sense.  meerabhai's comment about account limits had me confused since I expected accounts to be handled by derivation paths.



That also makes sense and it's what I would expect since passphrases aren't (or shouldn't be) stored in persistent memory.

I'm curious now: daily driver, but only in conjunction with a PC / laptop, right? Since ColdCard has no battery & no camera.

I personally find airgap using microSD cards very impractical; less practical than USB wallets even, since I more likely have a microUSB cable with me than a microSD card reader. That's why the camera is such a deal breaker. Add to that the ability to use it with any mobile device, makes it the perfect everyday wallet. I'm sure you will love it!

Oh really? I didn't know that. :-\ I don't have a ColdCard to compare with, but I feel this way of typing is still very fast; I'm sure the shape & size of both Passports (+ good large screen) also plays a role in improving that.

Exactly. :)

Yes, to your first question, kinda sorta.  The Mk3 works as you describe and so can the Mk4, but all it really needs is a power source.  With the adequate cable you can power it up from a phone, or a small usb battery.

I only own a Mk4, which again, can work the same way, but it has the ability to generate QR codes (not sure if the Mk3 can or not.)  The Mk4 can also work as a typical USB-connected hardware wallet if one chooses.  I prefer to keep mine on the default setting of using the mSD card.  

As for the ColdCard's QR codes; I can't read them with the cheap webcam I have on my desktop, but the laptop camera can read them.  I haven't tried on the phone, I only have hot wallets on that device, but I doubt that it's cameras would have any trouble.  The addition of a camera and a larger screen would be a worthwhile improvement for the Mk5.  ;)


If I'm understanding you correctly.  There are two dedicated keys to scroll through the alphabet, you can switch between caps without losing your place and a setting to scroll through special characters.

You know that you can easily buy cheap microSD to USB adapter for few bucks?
Just insert SDcard and you will have double functionality, that looks and works the same way as regular USD stick.

https://i.imgur.com/6QS3vNu.jpg

Are they really working on new Coldcard Mk5 model or this is only wishful thinking?
I think I saw someone asking them this question recently and I they said something like, dude we just released Mk4 and you are already asking as for new model :D
But let's be honest, market of hardware wallet is evolving quickly and if they don't keep up they could soon be irrelevant for most people, except maybe geeks, and that can be said for all other hardware wallets.

Not that I know of, just wishful thinking.  But you know what they say about being in business for yourself; if you're not growing your business your actually shrinking it.  There's no such thing as being stagnant. 


Absolutely.  As has been demonstrated by new arrivals like the Foundation Passport, the market is ready for upgrades and new innovation, and accommodating of higher prices than we've seen so far.  I really like my ColdCard but to remain relevant they need to add features to their devices that make them easier to use.  A camera would fit right to their original philosophy of keeping the device air-gapped, as well.

Really, MK4 has QR codes and camera? I didn't know that.
Just to clarify; to connect through USB you have to cut a trace or something like that if I remember correctly, right? Otherwise, a hack may be able to 're-enable' the USB port; something impossible on Passport since it has physically only power connections and no data lines going to the USB port.

True! And a battery. That would make it quite similar to Passport, right? :P

No; this button down here selects between lowercase, uppercase and numbers. If you're in 'numbers' mode and hit '3', you just get a 3. If you are in 'uppercase' and hit '3' once, you get a D; if you hit it twice, you get E and so on.

https://i.postimg.cc/VkjhbtTV/image.png

Of course; they even come with Passport Batch 2. But I would either lose them or forget to bring them with me. That's why Passport is so nice to have, all self-contained. No need for cables or cards; just need the wallet and another device. If the battery runs out, USB-C means it should be possible to find / borrow a cable somewhere. Whereas people don't have microSD card adapters with them and it's more suspicious to ask.

No, it doesn't have a camera, but it does generate QR codes for addresses and signed transactions.


To use USB connectivity you need to enable a setting on the device, that's all.  It'll work just like any typical wallet with Electrum.  With the default setting the USB port only provides power.  I tend to forget that it also has NFC capability, but I don't know of an app that I would want to use with the feature.



 ;)



Okay, now I get it, I must have misunderstood your previous post.  That's actually a much better system, and what I would have expected from the device.   :)

I see! Funnily enough; I can't generate addresses on the Passport (or I don't know how); you have to do it through the watch-only software wallet. You can then verify it using the Passport camera, though.
QR codes for signed PSBTs means you transfer the PSBT to the wallet using microSD and get it back, signed, through QR code? I don't see the benefit of that, since a microSD card is still involved, but good to know nonetheless.

Okay. I must say; not having D+ and D- lines at all, makes me feel safer. Although I can't gauge how much smaller the attack surface really is in the real world.

---

Happy to clarify your questions! Anyone else? ;)

While I don't have any questions (for now) I do have great news - Foundation just secured another $7M in funding[1] from Polychain Capital[2] (the latest SEC file[3] (March 2022) mentions that the fund manages a total of ~ $6.6 billion USD).
According to BusinessWire.com[4] the focus of the investment will be the following:
Really looking forward to see what this funding enables regarding business expansion and software development ... Things are looking bright for you guys, congrats @zherber! Probably not next year, but I would really love to see some action in Europe, perhaps 2024?

---

[1]https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/19/foundation-devices-seed/ (https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/19/foundation-devices-seed/)
[2]https://polychain.capital/ (https://polychain.capital/)
[3]https://web.archive.org/web/20220706154222/https://sec.report/AdviserInfo/Firms/285022/Form-ADV-285022.pdf (https://web.archive.org/web/20220706154222/https://sec.report/AdviserInfo/Firms/285022/Form-ADV-285022.pdf)
[4]https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221219005094/en/Foundation-Devices-Announces-Completion-of-7M-Seed-Round-to-Accelerate-Development-of-its-Sovereign-Computing-Platform (https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221219005094/en/Foundation-Devices-Announces-Completion-of-7M-Seed-Round-to-Accelerate-Development-of-its-Sovereign-Computing-Platform)

I just hope it's not going to be expansion and adding shitcoins support in Passport, because it's nice when you have 7 million dollars collected by new seed round, but it's not very nice to hear this was done by Polychain Capital  :P
It's ok if other coins want to build on top of Passport software, but this should NOT be officially supported by Passport developers in any way.
I don't know much about Polychain Capital, but quick search is showing me they are hedge fund involved with Tezos shitcoin, Quai Network, Dfinity, Kik Messenger and they invested in 14 different shitcoins...
https://foundationdevices.com/2022/12/announcing-our-7m-seed-round/

I agree with that; but have no worries any of this is going to happen.

Sure, however think about that: $7m may sound like a lot to us, but it's just 0.1% of this hedge fund. Even if they wanted to focus 99.9% on shitcoins, they could absolutely do that without pressuring Passport into any weird direction. :D

Yeah it's not a lot when you look how much money they have, but they won't throw away money just like that.
Foundation Devices also raised $2 Million last year, so you do need money flow to keep running things for any business.
Let's compare that with Ledger who collected $380 million from last year series C fundraising, that is really a big difference.
I personally wouldn't mind if they allow adding few other shitcoins that are privacy based, but I know the road is going down the hill when that happens.

PS
It would be interesting to collect foundrising information for all hardware wallets, but this would be tricky thing to do,
You would need to find who exactly invested money, how much they invested, and find som reliable documentation or links for that.

Update time! I installed the v2.0.5 beta (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/releases/tag/v2.0.5-beta) today and I'm pleased to announce that the camera issue is essentially fixed. From their release notes:


I still have the feeling that the original Founders Edition was a tiny bit faster; it actually surprised me when I first tried it. Barely had moved the device towards my screen and it had already registered (or that's what it felt like).

It's pretty hard to compare these side-by-side (I tried), but what they settled on now is absolutely usable, even with my (deliberately bad for these tests) lighting conditions, in which I had massive issues before (meanwhile others / myself when in a better light had none).

Hi all! Firmware v2.0.5 has been released with dramatically improved QR code scanning. Learn more on our blog:

https://foundationdevices.com/2023/02/passport-version-2-0-5-is-now-live/

I'll make myself available over the next 24 hours to answer any questions you have about Passport! Thank you n0nce for the amazing detailed review. I'll also do my best to spend more time monitoring this thread and on BitcoinTalk in general.

Thanks for the heads-up! I will try it as soon as possible and see if there are any noticeable changes from the beta version I had tried. However, that was already miles better than 2.0.4, as posted above.

Having some presence on Bitcointalk is definitely something I'd recommend to Foundation Devices. You could also create your own thread in this subforum (like Tibu is doing for his Satochip wallet (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5181719)) for announcements, updates and whatnot. But feel free to just keep posting here, if you prefer that.

I'm sure there are also ways to contribute e.g. as a sponsor for larger forum events like Bitcointalk Community Awards (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5422131.0) and similar to get more forum member hands on Passports and maybe more discussion and feedback.. ;)

---

Instead of being available for 24h, I recommend setting up something like LoyceV's notification bot (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5331343) or the Telegram bot linked there. :) Then you can have a look at your notification page from time to time and see if you got mentioned somewhere.

Thank you for coming here once again Zack! As someone who likes the whole concept of your product, could you share some details/road ahead regarding selling directly to consumers in Europe? Currently, according to one of your resellers[1], the price for a Batch 2 devices is 350 €[2] which makes a high barrier for entrance for users that may even like the product but the price is outside what they would like to spend on such device when they can, for example, buy a Trezor Model T for ~ 210 € - this difference is particularly important in the times that we currently face with high inflation and extreme energy prices in Europe.

The current price in USA for the device is $249 which translates to ~ 241 €. Considering your business model, I don't see it possible to happen in a foreseeable future to have two parallel assembly factories in both USA and Europe so that you could try to decrease the price between each regional area. However, I would like to ask if there are any plans to have a fulfillment center in Europe that could allow you to ship directly to EU customers. This is a similar approach taken from Trezor[5] - and Europe based company - where they have a fulfillment center in USA that allows them to ship their products directly to consumers (of course they still have resellers[6]) but I think that having a fulfillment center in Europe would contribute to have a smaller difference between USD and EUR price.

---

[1]https://foundationdevices.com/resellers/ (https://foundationdevices.com/resellers/)
[2]https://copiaro.de/en/product/passport-hardware-wallet-batch2/ (https://copiaro.de/en/product/passport-hardware-wallet-batch2/)
[3]https://trezor.io/support/a/where-do-you-ship-from (https://trezor.io/support/a/where-do-you-ship-from)
[4]https://foundationdevices.com/ (https://foundationdevices.com/)
[5]https://trezor.io/support/a/where-do-you-ship-from (https://trezor.io/support/a/where-do-you-ship-from)
[6]https://trezor.io/resellers (https://trezor.io/resellers)

Do keep in mind that exporting stuff costs money, too and European shops generally show prices with VAT included, whereas in the US it is added at checkout. By adding an approximate EU VAT rate of around 20% we get about 290€ and adding import taxes we get suspiciously close to that price of 350€.
Although I do agree that 350€ or $ is a lot of money. I already suggested that maybe they could make a 'light' version of the batch 2, using the exact same hardware and software (no additional R&D costs) and further reduce costs through cheaper materials (no metal parts, just all plastic). That should allow them to drop the price drastically, especially since a device at half the cost opens a much wider market. I don't really see why not to make a cheaper Passport.

Available how exactly?
I sent you personal message in forum more than two days ago and I still didn't receive any reply... maybe you didn't check your inbox :)

Like RickDeckard said before me, it would be a good idea to have official Passport distribution center in Europe, or have more options for resellers.
I can't wait to see what is your next device going to look like, as response to Cooldcard Q1 and many others upcoming hardware wallets like Keystone Gen2, new Trezor with secure element, 1inch wallet, and lets' not forget Block wallet by Jack Dorsey.

Thanks, I'll check with my team, I really like the idea of setting up our own thread for announcements and discussion. We'll look into potential sponsorships as well.

I'll also check out the notifications bot, because I've been relying on email notifications and it seems like I've been missing a lot.


Thanks for the feedback! I think we just need to ramp up and have higher volumes before considering a separate distribution center. But it's definitely something we'd want in the future.

One thing we've done in the last ~6 months is enable better import tax estimates when purchasing directly from us. For example, plugging in a random address in Portugal, it tells the customer that estimated taxes and duties will be $71.21 if shipping via UPS Worldwide Saver (in addition to shipping cost). It's just an estimate, but at least it's better than blindly ordering direct from us and getting hit with a large unexpected import tax bill.

I think we can, in general, reduce Passport's price over time as we scale production. Increased volume will mean lower costs, and we can pass those savings to our customers.


My preference for now would be to drive down costs via higher volumes and manufacturing optimizations, as opposed to releasing a new low-end device (at least in near term). I'd love to get Passport's price point to $199.


Sorry dkbit98, the email notifications on BitcoinTalk are pretty bad, I will just keep it open in a tab in my browser and check frequently. You guys have a great community here, hoping to participate in more discussions.

I think that would be more than fair price for Passport, especially when compared with hardware wallets from competition, Coldcard is from $149 to $199, Trezor is from $69 to $219, Ledger is from $85 to $300, Keystone from $119 to $169, etc.
However, I would really like to see Foundation offering several devices with different prices, so people could choose for themselves what they want.

No problem, we finally managed to get in contact ;)
Email notifications works fine for me for PM, but when someone mentiones your name in post Telegram bot @BTTSuperNotifier_bot is working great.

Sounds great to me!

Passport Batch 2 at $199 and Passport 2 Lite with plastic parts at $150 and we have a deal! ;D

I believe Email notifications only really work well for private messages (they should be very reliable for that, though), for anything else use Watchlist (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=watchlist) / Unread Replies (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=unreadreplies) / bots.

Indeed, the bitcointalk audience is one of, if not the most reliable audience that you could expose your product to - you've got many experienced users that are happy to tell you their thoughts and you've also the remaining users - from newbies to medium average users that for sure are looking for the next reliable hardware wallet to buy. From the back of my mind I can give you an example such as Satochip[1]. From my perspective I think that this is one of those moves that you'll never go wrong with - worst case scenario you'll get some raw feedback regarding your product which, from my perspective, will only improve it in either way.

Do check it out as it is a really handy feature. You've got two great guides here[2][3].

The tool itself is already quite handy, but I wonder if UPS has also a policy similar to Amazon regarding foreign shipping. In Amazon they'll estimate how much you'll pay in customs and bill you right at the checkout - if it ends up being less they return the money to you but if it ends being more than they initially estimated they'll cover the difference. Is this how UPS model works as well?

Also, regarding production costs, could you shed a light on what was a big challenge while building Batch 2 as a product? Did you encountered some problems in a specific part/supplier? How are the suppliers picked? Do you have some kind of evaluation methodologies that you apply in your selection process?

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[1]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5181719 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5181719)
[2]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5229697.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5229697.0)
[3]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5248878.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5248878.0)

Currently we just display the estimated import tax, but we don't charge the customer. The customer then needs to pay it directly from UPS (or whatever carrier they select) upon package delivery.

I think there is a way where we could pay the import tax on behalf of the customer, and therefore charge them for the estimated tax during checkout. I'll explore if this is possible, because I like your idea. The only downside would be if the estimate is consistently lower than the actual tax; that would eat into our margins and we aren't quite as big as Amazon :)


The biggest challenges by far were (1) getting the copper plating to look good consistently and (2) keypad feel and performance.

We will never again do a copper plating process on zinc alloy. We are exploring PVD coatings for future generations of Passport. The supplier had a really had time getting the color within our specification, and it was one of the main reasons we were delayed last year. We also had to throw away lots of parts due to surface finish issues.

For the keypad, we had challenges with both the number keys and the metal navigation keys. We do a pretty rigorous inspection process now, including grinding down posts of the metal keys if they don't feel good enough. In a few months we will be introducing a new keypad with more consistent performance, where the metal keys and plastic keys are backed by the same rubber membrane.

Regarding suppliers in general, we stick with the ones that do good work for us, and we look for new ones in areas where we are not satisfied. I think the only real way to evaluate a supplier is to run a batch of parts through them and see the output – and of course see how they respond to feedback and iterate.

I know you told us there are no plans for making new devices in near future, but one of my suggestions would be to consider making Passport waterproof or water resistant device.
This probably needs a lot of work in redesign of inside, but even cheaper solutions like waterproof cases for protection would be interesting, and you could sell them separately.
I already know several hardware wallets that started making waterproof devices, so better think about that on time.

So while the client is making the purchase he was to directly pay it to UPS instead to Foundation as a company? I may be thinking this wrong and I would love your input but, from a user perspective, this operation seems like it's a bit confuse - If I'm willing to pay for such a premium for such a device (considering the offers in the market), the least that I would expect is that I would pay whatever had to pay to Foundation and then the order would eventually come to my house - no need to make two separate transactions, one for you and one for UPS. I may be wrong on the following assumption, but doesn't it mean that by paying directly to UPS it makes me the one responsible for the package, thus it would be me who would have to argue with them if something went bad as opposed to being Foundation the ones responsible to care and making sure that the package arrives with no problems?

Regarding liquidity - I totally understand and support the concept that no company in the world (besides Google and Apple) has the same liquidity as Amazon has to have that kind of "compensation" system implemented. I think, however, that you could make some kind of partnership with a carrier (even having some of your devices in their warehouses?) and also ask them the % of situations that their simulation actually ended up on the wrong said a.k.a where the customer ended up paying more than what they were told. I know that in order to get good shipping values you'll need to have a higher volume of items, but at least I see space for working on the whole shipping taxes calculation (for countries outside US).


Interesting insight, thank you for it! n0nce also pointed out that the keypad felt a bit "weird" when compared with the previous version, so it's nice to also have a confirmation from your side - it's even better knowing that you already detected that it can be improved and improvements are already being put into place in the next generation!

Another question (if I may) : Regarding the funding that your company has managed to get so far, how do you manage the relationship with your investors? In one side you've got investors that want to have returns on their investment, but on the other hand you have the main purpose of your device that naturally makes the production costs high and directly impacts the amount of units that you are able to produce in order to make even, or make a tiny bit margin of profit. How do you deal and manage this situation with the investors?

I generally like and support the idea of Passport accessories. Consumers can 'freshen up' the look and feel of their device, can improve, better protect or even fix it (Spare parts? Replacement screen? Replacement Keypad? Is something like this an option? Would it be compatible with your security model? What about right to repair?), while the company can keep selling stuff, without pushing out a new hardware wallet every year, making last-gen owners feel left behind.

I've tried to see if it is hard to open the device (e.g. for repairs) and while there seems to be no glue, it fits together very tightly and I was worried about damaging it. But accessories could definitely be purely external; like back shells, screen protectors, silicone cases, carry cases, waterproof cases, ... Although that may demand much more effort than what we (I) expect.

Yeah, I think replaceable parts is the priority. Especially, if they can be replaced with commonly found components, which I don't think any hardware wallet has managed to do. Obviously, the main software, and chip isn't likely going to be replaceable, but I'm thinking about buttons or screens, batteries, and things like that, which could potentially be made via common components found in other devices. I like that idea, hard to pull off though.

Repair, I'd like to leave to the end user, there's a element of trust needed to send your device in for repair, I have the attitude that physical attacks, are quite unpredictable.

It's not a bad idea. But the problem with that is that an already pretty expensive device will become even more expensive if it becomes waterproof.

The question is how profitable will it be for the company to produce and brand their own waterproof cases if we can already get cheaper ones elsewhere? I personally wouldn't care about the make of the waterproof case as long as it protects whatever is inside, so I see no reason to go for a more expensive Foundation branded waterproof case.

To be honest, I don't like that the hardware wallet is shaped like a mobile phone. That makes it more susceptible to theft, since there are a lot of cellphone thieves lurking about in many parts of the world. It doesn't help that it also looks flashy - the bronze look just serves to attract more eyeballs to it.

What's wrong with making it a paper shape or a bracket or even like the Trezor & Ledger - plain designs that do not bring any attention.

I agree, but I think there's always an option to improve or rather modify its overall look to our liking... @n0nce mentioned "3D-printable custom back cover (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421713.msg61304199#msg61304199)" in the past and I think sooner or later, they're ^{[or someone else]} going to release STL files for the other parts ^{[e.g. "they released this for the FE (https://archive.ph/5Bzwy#selection-5089.0-5095.1)"]}.

A service "like this one (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5412149.0)" might come in handy for getting a different skin for those parts.

I don't know any thieves who are hunting to steal old style devices looking like phones, and you certainly wont bring Passport device glued to your forehead, or put in on the coffee shop table for everyone to see.

There are so many wrong things with this tiny design, starting from entering words/numbers, to small screens that can display and verify the whole address, they are cheap and break easily, etc.
And why the heck would they have to copy what others are doing? Passport is unique, they are the first who made this design and now ColdCard is doing similar BlackBerry design.
You have the choice, so use what you like most.

I would certainly like to see skins and cases for Passport wallet, for protection from scratches, drops and maybe more.

I like the look and the feel of the Passport, but I agree it is a bit flashy.  I wasn't sure what to expect but I got an idea the other day; my daughter walked into my home office the other day and she noticed the passport right away.  I think she was kind of shocked that I had a candy-bar phone in 2023, and right away asked "What is that".

The idea that it looks like an old-school phone might make some ignore it, but then again it's rather odd in this day and age for someone to have a phone of that shape and size.  That alone might make some people more curious.  The device itself doesn't have any indication that it's a bitcoin wallet, and it would take some one who knew that "Foundation" is a wallet manufacturer to recognize it for what it is.

As for other devices, the Nano S and the ColdCard are probably the best designs from an "incognito" perspective.  I will say that the Passport is by far the best hardware wallet I've ever used.  The quality is second to none, and it's very easy to use for an air-gapped wallet.  My ColdCard Mk4 can also be used air-gapped, but it's more cumbersome to use, especially if you have long, complex passphrase wallets you like to access regularly.

Paper shape? Electronics need some space.. ;D

I must say from my own usage that it is extremely comfortable to use with this shape. I've had wired hardware wallets with cables sticking out the side and bottom; neither was perfect, especially with short cables. If a device is too narrow or thin, it becomes awkward to hold. Some devices need to be held by the side, but have the buttons.. on the side. Others are too tiny to hold on to while pressing buttons, so you need to lay them on the table.
This device, you can use it one-handed, long passphrases, no issue whatsoever. It may even look less conspicuous, to be honest. I do agree that it would look less flashy in an all-black variant, for instance.

While they were obviously inspired by mobile phones when designing this, we should consider that mobile phones reached that shape over years of trial and error.

I agree with the Ledger, but ColdCard looks pretty odd, even more than an old candybar phone, no? Especially when connecting a 9V battery with a dangling cable to power it on.

Yeah, the Passport is very comfortable to use, and ergonomically superior to other brands.  It's worth noting the weight of the wallet as well; it comes off heavy at first, but it's heft feels good when using it with one hand.  Just something for the weight-conscious professional cyclists to consider.  :P



To me the ColdCards (Mk series) look like a small, cheap calculator that old people got for free when they started a bank account.  Notably, my kids have walked in on me with the ColdCard on my desk an never even noticed it.  They expect me to be an old fogy, but I guess a candy-bar phone is where they draw the line.

I understand the concept of NOT drawing attention.. and then having some kind of a quick explanation to just "shut them up" or to inspire anyone (including kids) NOT to inquire further.  The response surely does not need to be the truth, depending on the age/maturity & ways that you might be involving the kid in your "bitcoin related" business matters.  I already consider that kids are going to need to know some of these things, but surely there are times, places, and age-appropriateness (and even parental/relationship discretion) in terms of if, when and how much to introduce them to some of your own personal financial/security matters.

Your response:  "It's a communication device"

Kid: "For what?"

You:  "I use it for work"

Kid:  "Why not use a regular phone? My Iphone does everything.  blah blah blah"

You: "This one has some special features that need to be kept separate from the phone."

Now getting the attention of a security person or even someone who might be targeting certain kinds of devices, there may well be needs to tweak your answers, though maybe you can start out with similar responses, and if they continue to inquire, then you might need to provide them with additional information.... so in continuation with the same above questions, the security guard asks:

Security Guard:  "I never seen one of those.. It kind of looks like a phone but it seems like it is not a phone"

You:  " I like to think of it like a Yubikey card.  Have you ever heard about a Yubikey?"

Security Guard:  "It doesn't look like a Yubikey"

You:  " I was just told by my work people that Yubikey was not safe, so they moved to another system"

From my perspective, in any kind of inquiry, sometimes you still want to answer questions, and your level of rights to stay silent is going to vary from location to location.. and of course, many folks worry about how many rights to privacy are lost when crossing borders.. but that still might not mean that you need to continue to speak if there are too many questions that seem to be overly probing.. and of course, plausible deniability too.. and then if it is recognized as a certain kind of device that "is being targeted or not."

I don't want to get too far off topic because crossing borders may well be a question that is different from using such device in an office in which people might come in, or will the maid recognize it, or are you going to use it in public at a Starbucks or in the lobby of a hotel.. perhaps there might be some occasions in which you might engage in public use of the device or that you might have to show the device or it get's attention when you are going through security checks, which seem to be located in a lot more places these days... but maybe if the security folks are looking for a bomb, then they might wonder if your device might be a detonator...so if they recognize the device (as a bitcoin wallet/signing device), then that might be better in some circumstances... so maybe sometimes NOT having a device that has a removable battery might be better than having a device with removable batteries.. when crossing borders.

If you want incognito hardware wallet, than I guess best option for you is credit card format hardware wallets (Tangem, Satochip, etc.) that don't have any screen, and they communicate with application on smartphone.
You can carry this card format wallets in your wallet, most of them are waterproof, and can last for decades... all other hardware wallets are not incognito at all, and I saw most of them.

hahaha....imagine having all this stuff in your pocket as ''portable'' device :D
And for new gigantic ColdCard Q1 device you probably need to have some special kind of pockets.

I think that Passport is lighter than most smartphones but it could be even lighter if they used cheaper materials.
My question is what happens with Passport if it falls on ground  :) because I have a bad habit of dropping things, phones, etc.
Did anyone conduct any testing, even accidental drop test?

Again, best option for this is credit card style hardware wallets, that is mixed with regular cards and paper bills in your leather wallet.

Lol, lucky for me I trust my kids.  They are all responsible adults, so the conversation about the Passport actually went like this:

Daughter: What's that?
Papa: The best hardware wallet I've ever used.
Daughter: Oh yeah, I can see that.  It looks cool.  It resembles an old phone, is it supposed to?

As for the security guard at the airport, he will never see the Passport.  I travel with the ColdCard which seems to attract no attention in my experience.

---

I don't know about all that.  First off, I refuse to load my hardware wallets into my phone.  I have a few hundred bucks in my hot wallet, and that's usually all I need. 

Second, if I travel for more than just a weekend (and potentially need more funds,) I'll need to have a computer with me for other reasons, and I prefer to have the ColdCard with me.  And realistically a "cheap calculator" is less likely to get stolen than a credit card.

Third, I don't know how you can say that NFC chips will last for decades.  They haven't even been around for decades, and mine start failing after keeping them in my wallet for a couple of years.

Don't you worry. I just saw on their website, they now offer the perfect pants to carry it around. ;)

https://i.postimg.cc/xjM5yJ5T/image.png
It is a joke!

Not yet! ;D Now you gave me an idea.. I have thought about requesting hardware wallet 'review units' instead of always buying them from my pocket, but the dilemma would be that you're usually allowed to keep them. I could solve that by just performing a drop test / durability test until failure for each device. The flaw with this approach is that sample size N=1 is a bad idea to draw conclusions like that. You could be unlucky and be the 1 in 1,000,000 whose device is exceptionally strong or weak.

Or just software wallets... But this is getting off-topic! ;) Happy to discuss hardware wallets and border security in a dedicated thread, of course.

Interesting. As mentioned, I'd love to talk more about this in a dedicated thread and hopefully also collect people's experiences.
Now that I think about it, we may be totally overthinking it. Through the sheer number of electronics they pass through their scanners every day, they might have 'seen it all' and don't really care about a modern candybar-phone-looking device whatsoever.

You are not ''loading'' anything on your phone, it's just interface and your keys/coins are still on hardware wallet.
Some cards work with laptop, so you can carry that with yourself, you can even carry your whole mobile office if you want along with ugly fake calculator.

It's fake calculator that can't work without cable or some weird battery gadget, so only an idiot would think this is real calculator, but I could argue that you would be very much suspicious and draw attention because people don't use calculators anymore.

I never said NFC chips will last decades, but they probably will last long time.
I was speaking about material cards are made off, same as credit cards... it's common fact they can last decades, and some of them are waterproof or made of metal.
Nothing can break and there are no mechanical parts, no screen and no buttons, so they are very durable.

Oh great, price matches new ColdBerry perfectly, so let's buy reserve one pair for DireWolf in camo color combination and super BIG pockets so he can blend in everywhere with his portable devices ;D

Well, I get what DireWolfM14 is saying. Many mobile apps don't have as many options that the big desktop wallets. Many are not open-source, or they're not reproducible, don't allow you to change the Electrum server, don't have Tor, ...
Since you do store the xpub in the software wallet and there is some risk (of compromised privacy) when losing it / someone getting a copy of it, I understand why someone wants to stay on the cautious side with mobile wallets.

To be honest, I still don't think it is huge, either.. ;) T9 seems like an awfully good sweet spot between size and usability. The electronics of Q1 should be much more compact than what we're seeing here. Its size is mostly influenced by the keyboard, in my opinion.

---

Please let's stay on-topic (Foundation Passport)... 0:)

You don't have to believe me, but I do know how hardware wallets work.


I'm a middle-aged mechanical engineer.  I don't go anywhere without my HP48.


Oh, I see what you were saying now; the functional part may fail, but the rest of it will last decades.

Of course when crossing borders or otherwise put in a position in which someone might violate their authority over you or infringe upon your rights, including possibly your various sovereignty rights that you do not even need to disclose or argue that you have, there are a variety of ways in which your devices do not need to be loaded with visible funds.. but of course, they might need to be loaded with some funds and some recent transactions in order to potentially cause an attacker, whether state authorized or a private attacker from potentially believing that you are NOT disclosing what they might conclude (falsely or otherwise) what they believe that you "should disclose."

So for example, even if your devices are confiscated because perhaps there is a perception that you are carrying value on that device (even though we know the value is not really carried on the device  - even though access to the value could be facilitated by such device), there may well need to be a back up plan in which numbers and letters could be put together and reloaded on the other side of that event and to get access to funds - if there is a desire to have access to value in some location in which it might be presumed that you do not have much if any value to transact for your own personal purposes.

In the past, I have gotten confused about derivation paths and trying to figure out how to access some funds if using a different device and sometimes I have had trouble not being able to load funds or there is some level of incompatibility that I cannot figure out in a short period of time in which all of the accounts are not shown when I reload the device - and I don't claim to be sophisticated enough to always figure out what might be the solution - and surely depending on if matters might be timely, or even if matters might be sufficiently backed up, then there could be some vulnerabilities in terms of losing access to funds with the passage of time if there might be questions of how to regain access to funds or were they "only accessible" through one kind of a device.. so sometimes, I become a bit concerned that folks, including myself, might end up putting ourselves into a position in which it becomes difficult to recover funds or that we might end up leaking data that we don't want to have leaked - and whether or not carrying multiple devices solves the problem or not (or even if we might be comfortable to change the kind of devices that we use), might be questionable because maybe some of us might feel that we need the same kind of device in order to load our funds on the other end of going from one point to another point in which we might be searched.... and maybe question if we have enough information to load the replacement device, or if we are able to get the same kind of a device that we had in the new jurisdiction (or if we need to have the same kind of a device on the other end), or even question if our own security might have become too good in which we lock ourselves out of our own funds or we are trying to accomplish transactions that are beyond our own technical capabilities.. which also can be scary in terms of how much we might feel that we want to or have time to "experiment" carrying one kind of a device versus another kind of a device.


I may well need to shut up then, even though personally, I consider that weighing the various features of various wallets and/or devices can help a person to decide if it might be worth the potential time invested to actually purchase one device or another and if s/he finds a possible current use case for such device, over other ways that s/he might be currently carrying and transmitting value in one place versus another.. including when traveling there sometimes can be some uncertainties regarding how to get from one location to another (and if opsec might be questioned) and then when getting on the other end whether access to such device might be available or even needed to access funds... ..for example, I am pretty sure that this will work on the other end, and if it will not work, then am I going to need to go back (am I able to go back) to the earlier location.

To be fair, most hardware wallets somewhat resemble either those metal wallets you put your credit cards in or PDA devices. So, it shouldn't draw too much attention. However, I'm not one for carrying hardware wallets out in the open, so I guess it's not much of an issue. At least, not the main one. I guess having a hot wallet in a hardware wallet could potentially work, and draw attention.

Although, I step out every day with a wallet, debit card, and all that. So, I'm just as at risk. As long as you aren't carrying your hardware wallet with all your Bitcoin in it, and you take one that's got a small amount meant for spending or emergencies, it's the same as carrying fiat with you. Every day people see you carry fiat, and for the most part it remains safe.

You could be the first one to do it. Get a sponsor who will purchase you the test models that you will drop in exchange for your signature space. ;D Then conduct a fair and controlled experiment.

Although, I don't see the Passport or ColdCard as the favorites to win here. The bigger and heavier the device, the less chance it will have to survive. Trezor and Ledger would probably win here. Ledger's metal cap would maybe fall off but I think the wallet would remain functional. I don't think the credit card-looking gadgets should be part of the experiment.   

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that we've created an official Foundation account and topic for Batch 2 here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5441422.0

Thank you so much for the detailed and in-depth review, n0nce, and for driving such high-signal discussion in this thread!

Nobody should carry hardware wallets with themselves everywhere, like keychain or phones, except in some special cases.
However, I consider portability to be very important when you are traveling and you need to have funds available with you all the time.
There are many cases of people being able to survive and escape war zones thanks to Bitcoin and hardware wallets.

It's funny how people don't care what happens with their cards, and we literally know they are stolen every day  :D
Even worse for smartphones, they can hold virtual cards and many sensitive information, this can certainly be used to harm you.
If we look at percentages there is much higher chance of someone get stolen wallet with cash and smartphones, than hardware wallets.
I bet that thief would not stole old Nokia-like phone from anyone ;)

Welcome to bitcoitnalk!
I hope you can be active here in forum and post regular updates.

Thank you for the kind welcome!

Excited to better support our users (both current and potential) here on Bitcoin Talk, this will be a priority for us moving forward and we'll be monitoring the key threads around Foundation devices.

Expect to see software releases dropped here at the same time as publishing to Github, and any important company news etc. around Passport (+ future devices/products in their own threads!)

Awesome, welcome to Bitcointalk! Hopefully we can also ping it at @foundationdvcs if there is something important to know directly from the 'source' in a discussion. Sure, you are welcome. :)

That sounds great. 0:) The official thread looks very nice, I can see your guys put some time into getting into BBCode and making it all look pretty. As well as reserving a post for firmware updates / release notes. I'm putting it right into my bookmarks!

Hi, I've almost made up my mind to order Passport for myself.

I am intended to use it with Sparrow wallet connected to net via Bitcoin Core node.

In this respect, I wonder whether Bitcoin Core can  run with flag that disables its wallet?

Sparrow docs states (https://sparrowwallet.com/docs/connect-node.html) that Bitcoin Core should not  have  disablewallet=1 flag  but I think that in the case when it used as light-weight client for Passport such flag might be a valid thing.

Is this correct?

And one more question.

Is this true that Passport does not allow for the  second PIN allocated for addresses batch generated by  SEED + password and there is a need for manual input of that password each single time  in order to have access to those addresses?

Welcome to Bitcointalk! Very awesome that you decided to join the original bitcoin community and I feel that this will only benefit your company and reputation!


Your devices are very promising and have a lot of great features. They somehow look a little bit like an old phone, which I can not decide if it is a good thing or a bad thing :) Is there a specific reason for that design choice?

If Sparrow states that it can't connect to Bitcoin Core when the flag is set to 1, they probably have a good reason to do so. I haven't looked into that myself, but I believe that if you disable Bitcoin Core's internal wallet, that disables a lot of functionality which is also required for connecting a different wallet (e.g. Sparrow) to it.

Anyway, I don't get why you'd want to disable the Bitcoin Core wallet in the first place. As long as you don't send funds to it, turning it off won't really make you any more or less secure.

If you use a mnemonic passphrase (https://github.com/bitcoinbook/bitcoinbook/blob/97df56f77c06813b1e028b5b1f2dbc036f27b1fc/ch05.asciidoc#mnemonic_passphrase), you have to enter it every time you reboot, but otherwise you don't need to enter it when using the device.

Here you can see the official Foundation Devices documentation of this feature, which includes a video:
https://docs.foundationdevices.com/passport/more#enter-passphrase

Yeah, you are correct.

Sparrow refuses to connect to Core with that flag.

I have already checked this


I have 20 characters password that serves as extension to my SEED and  in my view it s very inconvenience to enter password every time when rebooting.  

I need this password as a second layer of security to my funds.

If it is not top secret, what software wallet do you personally use with Passport?

The main reason is to make it a much more approachable and familiar device to people new to Bitcoin hardware wallets than the other options out there. We want people to pick it up and immediately understand the basics of typing, navigation, etc. through familiarity with old cell phones.

Very much an intentional design choice  :)

---

Sharing this from the official Passport thread as it's a massive new update and wanted to be sure everyone saw it! If you're not following that thread yet, you can do so here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5441422.0

A few questions:

1)  What does "Erase Passport" do, erases SEED, nothing else?

2) As I got it if I setup my password and do after that backup on microSD the relevant encrypted 7-zip file will hold solely the SEED but not SEED+password, is this correct?

3) If I create a few accounts how can I move between them on Passport?

4) On default Passport creates accounts with native Segwit addrs. How account with nested Sefwit addrs can be created?


P.S.Pairing device  with 3rd parties  wallets via animated QR is still pain in the ass. I have tried it with both Spectre and Sparrow and neither  attempt succeeded. Pairing via micro SD works as it should be.

I would honestly recommend you to ask these questions in the official Foundation Devices Passport thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5441422.0), now that it exists.

[1] As far as I know, yes. There is not much more that one may want to delete. The main difference from a fresh, new Passport is that you don't get the original 'walkthrough' again with the supply chain validation and whatnot. To the best of my knowledge, this is intentional to give users the ability to tell whether their Passport had been set up and reset before, or whether it comes untouched from the factory.
[2] I don't think the SD backups contain BIP-39 passphrases.
[3] Where did you create those accounts? Are you talking about an imported seed? I'd highly advise against importing a seed and recommend creating a new one, on-device and transfering funds on-chain.
If you still decide to import a seed which has different funded accounts (derivation paths) on it, they will reappear by 'creating' them on Passport again.
What wallets do when you 'create new accounts' is just calculating the deterministic wallet at the next (or chosen) index and displaying its addresses (and balances). Nothing is actually 'created' in that sense, think of it more as 'displaying' a certain (hidden) account.
[4] I don't think nested SegWit is supported.

Regarding pairing: are you running the latest firmware?

Sorry for bothering you.
In my eyes you are a one to whom I may trust largely because of your experience and every your response has a value for me.
As a matter of fact my decision to have  Passport was due to your reviews.



Yes, The latest one, 2.1.0






I understand that.  I was asking about moving between those  "(hidden) account's.  Say my primary is .../0' Then there is an option to create  .../1'  Suppose I have created that one. How to move between .../0'  and ../1' ? Only via software?

Sorry if that came across wrong; it's not bothering me and I appreciate your words. :) It's just that I watch both threads anyway and if you expect a reponse by Foundation, the other thread may be better suited.

Interesting; I just installed it on my Founders Edition and it recognizes addresses as soon as the QR code enters the camera field of view. I've yet to try that firmware version on the Batch 2.

You just move between them using the device's arrow keys / keypad (left and right). :)
Depending on the wallet software, you may need to pair each 'account' individually (using the 'Connect Wallet' menu entry on Passport) or it may support multiple accounts in a concise user interface.

https://docs.foundationdevices.com/passport/account

Oh, didn't realize that.


Yeah, it recognizes addresses quickly, but I was talking of initial pairing when app reads animated QR from Passport screen.

My Sparrow runs on relatively fastCore i7-7700 HQ, 16 Gb Ram and  today only forth attempt to pair it with Passport via animated QR has succeeded. But my hands were tired to hold Passport around  4-5  minutes in front of camera to get to the end. I can only imagine how it would be at say signing transaction.  

Probably do it via SD card less secure but at the same time more effortless.

Of course, pairing needs a bit more time, since there is much more data to transmit (much more than addresses or PSBTs).
I just tried it on mine again and it took about half a minute to a minute. I don't think that computer hardware performance has anything to do with it, since the laptop I tried it on is weaker than yours.

Honestly, pairing is something you will do very rarely, so using a microSD card is fine, too, but I'd be interested to hear whether PSBTs are transferred fairly quickly. If not, you may have to open a support case with Foundation.
Over the last months of updates, the recognition speed became faster and faster with every release.

Damn, really cool review!

We just recently chatted with these guys about Peach. 🍑

I'll be sure to pass on the link to this thread as well.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0PRWM4A2HklUh0yQwZGv9D

The  PSBTs  are a bit slower than a light.  ;)  Moved all my stash from ledger nano s+ to Passport 2.

And it seems that the latest price reduction combined with the Ledger fiasco did wonders for stocking out some suppliers in the EU[1]:
Keep up the nice work @foundationdvcs and @zherbert!

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[1]https://nitter.it/BitcoinBrabant/status/1658837864724013063 (https://nitter.it/BitcoinBrabant/status/1658837864724013063)

Ha, I've got how to pair Passport via animated QR with a speed of light.

When animated code is shown on Passport display the latter exposes to view  three small squares  located at bottom of the screen  just in the center between left and right arrows. One should use  joystick-button and choose the smallest square. That results in increased QR patterns which are readily perceived  by Web camera. With this trickery I managed to pair Passport with Sparrow in less than 10 secs.

Piece of cake!

That's a great tip! However, I do believe that most users will probably not be that savy regarding knowing it and it would be better to make it available to everyone, straight when the QR codes appears. Perhaps with your tip the developers could figure out what is making the application get slower in that particular menu? Or you're just using the menu correctly and every user has to select a square (I don't own a Passport).

Exactly, there is no need for special menu.

User should select correct square.

Perhaps  their official docs should be more detailed on that when describing how to pair device with the use of animated QR.

All three squares are very small. I noticed them only today and figured out what they are for.

Probably the default should be the smallest one.

UPD. The smallest one is default.

If memory serves correct, earlier versions of the passport2 firmware did default to a bigger QR code size (requiring scanning fewer codes to transmit the same amount of data).
But those early versions had issues with recognition speed, ironically, since the device wasn't picking up QR codes fast enough so it had to cycle through them multiple times to gather all the data.

At least this was the case when scanning QR codes with Passport. I'm not sure whether scanning from the Passport screen had any issues.

Anyhow, since the whole QR recognition code in general has been changed and optimized a lot, I do agree that defaulting back to a smaller number of larger-sized QR codes makes sense.

Sorry for misleading you on this matter.

Default remains large-sized QR code, i.e the smallest square I have mentioned in my previous post is selected on default.

Probably in my previous attempts to pair via QR I have touched somehow that joystick-button in the course of feeding data to WEB camera and thus changed the size of QR patterns.

Now I'm very cautious  as to  that button in  the course of pairing.

Corrected my previous post. Sorry once more.

No need to apologize, it's just very good to know, thanks for checking back on that!

This is by far way better version of hardware wallet. It looks so much premium as compared to my ledger. Now I’m feeling so down as compared to what I have and what is on the market. Honestly you can have first impression from the packaging and how a product is delivered to your doorsteps. Just scrolled through all the gallery posted by n0nce and I’m so impressed with how they made this product. It looks very lavish product by its appearance. Moreover, it has color screen man that’s even better than most of the Back LED type of screens. What  I mean is, it gives entirely modernist feeling. @n0nce must be premium when you are holding it in your hands? The technical details are already discussed in depth so yeah it has got one more vote for sure.

I initially wanted to say that even if you wanted to purchase it, it might be difficult for you. I am assuming you are Russian and many companies have stopped shipping to Russia and Ukraine due to the current situation. Foundation Passport is manufactured and assembled in USA, but they have a few resellers around the world. I was actually surprised to see that a Russian company is part of their reseller network. If you really want the wallet, here is one way to get it:

CrypToro
https://cryptoro.ru

All the other resellers are here:
https://foundationdevices.com/resellers/

It does feel 'premium', indeed. It's quite heavy (both versions) since they have a piece of structural casing made out of cast metal on the inside. The shell (front and back) seems from rather good, durable plastic as well and due to open-source hardware, it should be possible to even 3D print replacement parts in the future.

I've wanted to try that from the day I got it, but just never got around to doing it. 0:)

I'm torn between this wallet, cold card and Jade.

Do they ship discreetly? And if I read correctly passports are shipped UPS with tracking. correct?

Thank you

What do you consider discreetly? Unless something changed, Passport Foundation allows shipping to PO boxes. You can also pay for your hardware wallet with Bitcoin through BTCPay Server, which is another privacy boost. Regarding shipping methods, I guess it depends on your country/location. I know that Foundation works with USPS and UPS, maybe other couriers as well.

Thanks for the info. I'm a little concerned on how the package is labeled. I'm pretty sure foundation isn't the most well known company anyway.

You can read a bit more about the way the package looks in n0nce's unboxing part of his Foundation Passport (FE) hardware wallet review and walkthrough. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5382675.msg59052891#msg59052891) As he explained, the Batch 2 is also shipped in the same white box with a security seal. Once you open it, you should see this:

https://i.postimg.cc/WznCdK9q/IMG-0145.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/Y0bDrF91/IMG-0149.jpg

There aren't any clear markings either on the outer box nor on the inner one that you are dealing with a hardware wallet. The Foundation logo is on the upper cover, but you would have to be familiar with it to know what it represents.

I think that the concern of Pocketchange is more related to what kind of information is placed on the outer box of the packaging unit. I imagine that OP doesn't want people to know that the sender of the package was a hardware wallet company, which would have a sender address something like "Foundation Devices ...". Do note that the shipping package may differ depending on where you bought the device from. I found this article[1] that has a picture of what appears to be the outer packaging box (it even has the shipping details removed).
As for verifying that the device wasn't tampered during the shipping process, Foundation has a validation[2] website that you can use to make sure your device wasn't altered in any way.

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While Foundation devices doesn't have the marketing level that other competitors in the market (such as Ledger and Trezor) do note that the comparison would be unfair - you are comparing a relative new company with both Ledger and Trezor that have been in the market for years. If you take a moment to look for feedback regarding Foundation devices in this forum - a pot of knowledge regarding Bitcoin - you'll find almost no negative feedback regarding their devices.

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[1]https://bitcoinmagazine.com/guides/foundation-passport-bitcoin-wallet-guide (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/guides/foundation-passport-bitcoin-wallet-guide)
[2]https://validate.foundationdevices.com/ (https://validate.foundationdevices.com/)

Yeah, so I believe this (white box) was the 'outer box' and it did have some minor 'Foundation Devices' labeling on it as seen in the second picture. I also just checked and found a picture of the shipping label that I did not post, where the sender is labelled as 'Foundation Devices'.

Thank you for validating my theory @n0nce. I really don't think you'll be able to disguise the sender information in your packaging @Pocketchange, if this is what you were concerned about. I think that the only way that you could disguise your purchase would use a mix of actions:

• Pay for your purchase using bitcoin acquired in a P2P market. Ideally see what payment processor the service uses (BTCPay Server would be great as Pmalek cited). If you want to further increase the privacy of your purchase, use Payjoin[1] or Coinjoin;
• If you are inclined to get a Foundation Device, have a look at their resellers[2] and see if you find some shop that doesn't sell only crypto related devices. For example this Slovenian reseller - Enna[3] - sell a plethora of technology devices - ranging from TV's, washing machines, laptops, monitors - and they also sell Foundation batch 2[4]. If you bought it from them, it would be very hard to pinpoint exactly what kind of device would be inside the packaging (as opposed as buying in a service that only sells hardware wallets);
• Get a PO box (as others have said) and ship the item to that address.

I know that, in the US at least, in order to get a PO box you have to provide some personal data[5] but you would avoid giving out your real address thus preventing your real address from any future data leak that the service may incur. For peace of mind do note that Foundation deletes your personal data 60 days after shipping your device[6]. Other providers may have different time frames that you can also check in their privacy policy[6].

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[1]https://foundationdevices.com/2022/03/passport-coinjoin/ (https://foundationdevices.com/2022/03/passport-coinjoin/)
[2]https://foundationdevices.com/resellers/ (https://foundationdevices.com/resellers/)
[3]https://www.enaa.com/ (https://www.enaa.com/)
[4]https://www.enaa.com/varni-in-pametni-kljuci/passport-batch-2-denarnica-za-bitcoin-foundation-devices (https://www.enaa.com/varni-in-pametni-kljuci/passport-batch-2-denarnica-za-bitcoin-foundation-devices)
[5]https://about.usps.com/forms/ps1093.pdf (https://about.usps.com/forms/ps1093.pdf)
[6]https://foundationdevices.com/privacy/ (https://foundationdevices.com/privacy/)

Confirming.

The aesthetically designed  inner box which contains Passport 2 device is shipped inside solid white  carton protected by a tamper-evidend   blue strip. The latter holds characters which indentify the batch of device manufacturing.



Below are Passport 2 boxes I have got.

There is nothing wrong with your recommendations, but they will only be effective if a person follows all of them. For example, mixing your coins is a good idea. But mixing your coins and then having the device delivered to your home address under your real name defeats one of the purposes of mixing.

Delivering to PO boxes could be tricky depending on where you live and which courier does the shipping. When I order stuff online, I sometimes have to provide ID to the courier who feeds the information into the system. Staying anonymous doesn't work in that case. Some couriers in certain countries won't allow deliveries to PO boxes.   

The only alternative - that I'm aware - that could work is to have the package sent to a locker where you could later pick it up such as the service offered by GoLocker[1] (recently launched in NYC[2]). As far as I could see, you could provide a fake name and a temporary e-mail in the signup process. To receive the message to open the locker you would need to buy a SIM card just for that operation, but I suppose that it would be easily bought in a store. However I do reckon two problems with this process:

• You would have to pay to use this service by either a credit or debit card. Perhaps using a solution such as Privacy.com[3] would obfuscate the purchase? Or ask some friend/family of yours to pay for it?
• The places where these lockers are put are usually under CCTV. You probably would have to go with some kind of clothes that would help you hide your identity from the cameras.

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[1]https://www.golocker.com/ (https://www.golocker.com/)
[2]https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/new-york-city-is-testing-a-public-locker-program-to-help-with-package-deliveries-070323 (https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/new-york-city-is-testing-a-public-locker-program-to-help-with-package-deliveries-070323)
[3]https://privacy.com/ (https://privacy.com/)

It's a good solution, but just as I thought, not only is it only available in the USA, but it has very limited reach there as well. You can only use their lockers in Los Angeles and New York City. Everyone else in the States, not to mention the world, doesn't benefit from this option. As time goes by, I am sure it will incorporate more cities. They might even reach Europe or someone could create an alternative here. But I suspect it's again going to be something for the biggest countries to take advantage of, while the majority won't be able to use it.

My job requires frequent business trips within EU, and I have used this as opportunity to have the package with Passport inside delivered to hotel where I stay. I made the purchase   from a local reseller in the country I visited, rather than from my country of permanent residence. While it may not be the ideal solution, I believe it is better than relying on the logistics of my own country.

I totally understand your point of view, but my previous entry was more showing that there could be other services that could be used, and GoLocker would be just one example of a company that does it. I don't know about the US, but I do know that in Europe there are a lot of companies that offer this kind of service (providing a locker address to receive packages instead home addresses). But yeah, at the end of the day this isn't a really global solution that could be employed by everyone...

Jade is lower class budget device that doesn't have secure element, so it's less secure than other two wallets you mentioned.
Coldcard is not open source anymore, but code base is very similar and Passport is based on it's old code.
If I had to pick from this three wallets I would always pick Passport.

I think Passport can sell wallets for cash if you live in United States, or you can get them delivered to Amazon lockers I think.
Another option is to buy hardware wallets at some bitcoin conference, and maybe you will find some additional discount.

They do accept cash but not physical cash - If you follow their checkout process there are only two options available to choose from:
https://talkimg.com/images/2024/01/19/3pbtP.png
Best option to pay for cash would be the one you've mentioned - in a Bitcoin conference - or, if unavailable, then choosing from their list of resellers[1]. While the chances are very low, the next Bitcoin conference that Foundation will attend will be in Spain[2] - Watch Out, Bitcoin[3].

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[1]https://foundationdevices.com/resellers/ (https://foundationdevices.com/resellers/)
[2]https://nitter.it/FOUNDATIONdvcs/status/1680230828285083652 (https://nitter.it/FOUNDATIONdvcs/status/1680230828285083652)
[3]https://wobitcoin.org/ (https://wobitcoin.org/)

since today there is the new passport 2.1.2 release, with the new update it is now possible to send your funds to taproot 'p2tr' address. everything else like which bug fixes and improvements are coming with the new release, you can see from the links below

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1678875987373613056/eP4O_ObI?format=jpg&name=small
https://foundationdevices.com/2023/05/passport-version-2-1-1-is-now-live/ (https://foundationdevices.com/2023/05/passport-version-2-1-1-is-now-live/)
https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/releases/tag/v2.1.2 (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/releases/tag/v2.1.2)

As a matter of fact the taproot feature has been integrated into Passport since the release of v.2.1.0 firmware. New in  v.2.1.2 is that "the build is now "reproducible" again"  (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/releases)meaning you can yourself "easily build and verify Passport firmware'  (https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2/blob/main/REPRODUCIBILITY.md)from code found on Foundation's GitHub repository.


Nevertheless, thanks for informing on new release.

My Passport 2 runs v.2.1.0 and probably tomorrow I will update it.

May I suggest an 'out of the box' ;) alternative?
I believe that you can buy Passports in-person using BTC at some Bitcoin conferences that Foundation Devices attend. If not, they should start offering this option.. 0:)

Another (possibly illegal) solution: locate an inhabited house in a non-surveilled location (opposed to PO boxes that are often CCTV'd) and use this as delivery location. Either wait there at the day of delivery or instruct the driver to drop off the package & pick it up later. It's a method which has been used for illegal activities in the past, so it should be relatively secure.

Overall, I like that idea, and it does not sound illegal to me - to receive a package at a location that I am at, and either not using my real name or using a fictional name (if the shipper requires some kind of a name?)...

Also if the shipper is willing to ship without either KYC or with minimum KYC that gets removed from their system after a bit of time, that does not sound illegal either.

I am not necessarily wanting to get into any debates, but it seems incorrect to be suggesting that my desire to remain anonymous in receiving a package or the way that I pay for such package would be illegal (or should be illegal..and even if such a thing were to be illegal in some jurisdictions, it does not seem to be the kind of law that would be enforceable, except by tyrants)..

Also, even if such a service has been used to receive "illegal" items or to perform "illegal" products in the past, it seems to me that a signing device does not seem to fit into such a category of something that either is illegal (or should be illegal if some tyrant were to want to make it illegal merely because they do not like individuals having abilities to digitally transact and/or communicate information/value directly with each other and without a third party intermediator).

Sorry, I was not completely clear. What I was trying to say is that I can imagine it being illegal to ship to and / or step onto a property that is not yours (nor rented by you).

You can indeed as per my previous reply[1]. The only downside that I see from this is that you're limited to your country of residence and how well is Bitcoin being adopted in there. You can, of course, decide to travel to attend the conference, but that would increase the costs of the device (indirectly). You can, however, book some vacations in Spain and then, coincidentally, be there in Bitcoin conference to buy their device ;).

As for the more out of the box idea - sending it to a non habituated house or location - seems too much risky for me (I'm risk adverse). It could work, but the amount of workaround or precautions that you would have to take would be considerable.

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[1]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421713.msg62555927#msg62555927 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421713.msg62555927#msg62555927)