Has anyone used the CoolWallet S?

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Presently being bored, I was browsing Amazon and found myself once again in the hardware wallet section.  I came across the CoolWallet S which I think I've seen before, but for some reason it caught my eye this time as being pretty attractive (except for the price).

I did do a search in this section but didn't come across any threads dedicated to it, though I found this one from 2014 that has a variation of the CoolWallet S in it, but no review.  As an aside, it's interesting to see all of those HW wallets listed in the OP, most of which have dead links to their manufacturers' websites.  Kind of makes me wonder if there are any HW wallet collectors out there who have such oddballs as the EliptiBox or eWallet.

Anyway, the Amazon reviews for the CoolWallet S are mostly positive, but I'm always skeptical about online ratings.  That's why I wanted to hear from anyone who owns one of these.  From their F.A.Q. it looks like their code is closed-source, so that's always a negative IMO, but if they've been around for years without any incidents then I'd be more inclined to give them a shot.  Maybe.  Not that I need another hardware wallet, but I've developed an affinity for the "card" type ones (like the Ballet) and will at least put the CoolWallet S on my watch list.  I'd love to hear any info anyone has.

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[RickDeckard]

Anyway, the Amazon reviews for the CoolWallet S are mostly positive, but I'm always skeptical about online ratings.

While I can't help you with the remaining of your inquiry, whenever I wanna have an opinion/evaluation of the reviews of a product in Amazon - to see if they are faked or not - I always run the item trough Fakespot - It's a website that basically checks the users who review the item and somehow evaluates their review history to see if they are bots or if they are real humans / people. Of course that it may not be 100 % accurate but at least it's something right?

I've taken the time to do an analysis of the item you've described in here -> https://www.fakespot.com/product/coolwallet-s-wireless-bitcoin-wallet

The conclusion : "Our engine has profiled the reviewer patterns and has determined that there is minimal deception involved."

[HCP]

Honestly, aesthetics wise, it looks a bit like the BitHD-Razor: https://bithd.com/BITHD-Razor.html

Although it seems like it has an "ePaper" display instead of OLED like the Razor. And is super thin at just "0.8mm"... Not sure I'd be keen on the proprietary charging dock... and this just frightens me:





If it wasn't quite so expensive, it would probably be a neat little "portable" wallet you could take with you on the go, so you could have your mobile "hot" wallet with extra security... But then the economics of it don't really make sense

[The Sceptical Chymist]

The conclusion : "Our engine has profiled the reviewer patterns and has determined that there is minimal deception involved."

Ah, thank you for that--I wasn't even aware that there was such a tool to analyze ratings.  Assuming it's true that there's minimal deception (that kind of makes me chuckle), it seems like the wallet isn't a total dud. 

Although it seems like it has an "ePaper" display instead of OLED like the Razor.

Another thing I've never heard of: ePaper.  I'll have to look that up.  I did notice the term when I was looking at the wallet, but I have no clue what the difference is between that and an OLED display.

If it wasn't quite so expensive, it would probably be a neat little "portable" wallet you could take with you on the go, so you could have your mobile "hot" wallet with extra security... But then the economics of it don't really make sense

No, you're right.  The thing is just too expensive for what it is and compared to what other HW wallets cost (like Ledgers and Trezors).  I think the Ballet wallet is even too costly at $35, though I love the design.

[Charles-Tim]

Ah, thank you for that--I wasn't even aware that there was such a tool to analyze ratings.  Assuming it's true that there's minimal deception (that kind of makes me chuckle), it seems like the wallet isn't a total dud. 

There is another site trustpilot that I was using for review before I joined Bitcointalk. But what I noticed about these kind of review is that only little information can be gotten from the reviewers as they do not know much about full wallet function like while using Trezor or Ledger Nano on desktop computer. In such review like on Amazon I noticed some reviewer were condemning Ledger Nano, some reviewers might be from the wallet company reviewing it themselves after buying the wallet from Amazon, although I may be wrong.

The wallet is just a phone (iOS and Android) compatible wallet that may not support computer, but it is water proof according to a YouTube video I saw on their official site.

Most hardwallet nowadays are only supporting mobile phones to operate, what a bad idea to me, using hardware on desktop wallet like electrum is far better than the phones which most of these people prefer for convenience reason. I have not seen any of these mobile compatible wallets to support coin control and some other features that desktop electrum can provide.

[dkbit98]

I would not waste any money for purchasing CoolWallet hardware wallets and there are several reasons for that, main one being that everything is closed source like you said.
You can't connect CoolWallet with any third party wallets like Electrum so you are forced to use their mobile app for this, and Kraken Security Labs found several serious flaws and vulnerabilities with them.
CoolWallet app was storing PIN, pairing password, and hardware seed in plaintext, there was no PIN verification on device and seed was unprotected despite having secure element.
CoolWallet is also not supporting BIP39 passphrases and that means that anyone could extract everything they need from this device.
You can read the full Kraken report, and even if this flaws are maybe fixed, I would stay away from using this wallet.
There was also an Bluetooth Vulnerability with their older versions.

They also released new and more expensive CoolWallet Pro device that has new version of secure element but I don't see any major improvements or any reason to use this wallet especially with $149 price.

[HCP]

Another thing I've never heard of: ePaper.  I'll have to look that up.  I did notice the term when I was looking at the wallet, but I have no clue what the difference is between that and an OLED display.

Basically they are a low power black and white screen like the ones used by Kindle and Kobo and other eBook readers etc... sometimes also referred to as e-Ink.

I suspect it was chosen due to the slim form factor of the device.

[dkbit98]

I forgot to mention one important thing about CoolWallet device unusual way of generating seed words that are converted to numbers, and they have specific derivation paths.
That means that if you lose your device and you want to restore your seed words in different hardware of software wallet, it could be much harder than you think and you may need to use iancoleman tool and follow their guide.

CoolWallet S is an HD (Hierarchical Deterministic) which uses BIP44 (proposed) derivation path to derive the public keys, then we use BIP141 (SegWit) to convert the public key to a SegWit address, thus, your SegWit accounts (BTC/LTC) may not be detected when you recover the seed on BIP49 (draft) supported wallets or vice versa.

https://help.coolwallet.io/article/58-can-i-recover-my-coolwallet-s-seed-to-another-wallet

[HCP]

Huh... so they're generating P2SH-P2WPKH addresses... but instead of using m/49'/0'/0'... they use m/44'/0'/0'... and they're also using some funky "number seed" system (which is actually mapped to the BIP39 wordlist) if you generate the seed on the device, instead of generating it on the phone(!!?! why is generating it on the phone even an option??!? )

As nifty as the card appears to be... and I'll admit, that 0.8mm thickness had me interested... there are just way too many issues with this device for my liking

[dkbit98]

Huh... so they're generating P2SH-P2WPKH addresses... but instead of using m/49'/0'/0'... they use m/44'/0'/0'... and they're also using some funky "number seed"

They sure have some mambo jumbo tech for inventing warm water all over again, and after looking at all their previous security issues I would say that this is probably one of the worse hardware wallets someone can buy today.

There are other hardware wallets with credit card format like BitHD that is based on Trezor open source code, or Hashwallet and Ecomi, but I don't see why anyone would carry them in their wallet like regular cards,
and they don't offer anything special compared to other hardware wallets.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

You can read the full Kraken report, and even if this flaws are maybe fixed, I would stay away from using this wallet.

Thanks for all that information--I just ran out of merits, so I owe you and HCP.  It sounds like the CoolWallet S has waaay too many problems to even consider using it, not to mention that it's seriously overpriced.  Still, it might be a very cool crypto collectible.

I forgot to mention one important thing about CoolWallet device unusual way of generating seed words that are converted to numbers, and they have specific derivation paths.
That means that if you lose your device and you want to restore your seed words in different hardware of software wallet, it could be much harder than you think and you may need to use iancoleman tool and follow their guide.

That is so idiotically moronic that my head is spinning just thinking about what they were thinking when they came up with that nonsense.  And you know, the Keepkey had some bizarre feature with the device code (if I remember correctly; that brick is in a landfill somewhere) that was completely unnecessary and just made things more difficult.  What you described reminded me of that; I'm not sure who engineers these things, but there are obviously some designers who need more education or a stronger eyeglass prescription.

[Murpheus]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5207366.msg53272976#msg53272976

I found this link and couldn't agree less, should being closed source be a criteria to judge if a hardware wallet is trusted or not? Have never used a hardware wallet myself, but being open source can work in two ways, being open source should only be an advantage of it's been tested by a third party to check for flaws!!

Being closed source could be the reason they haven't had incidents in years!

[dkbit98]

I found this link and couldn't agree less, should being closed source be a criteria to judge if a hardware wallet is trusted or not? Have never used a hardware wallet myself, but being open source can work in two ways, being open source should only be an advantage of it's been tested by a third party to check for flaws!!

You have to be pretty much brain dead and dumb to think that everything that is open source automatically means that it is good and safe to use, because even viruses and malware can be open source.
Point of open source is to avoid any hidden code so that other developers and security experts can review it, find bugs and contribute with fixes, like in case with Bitcoin and Trezor wallet.
Closed source devices issues not being reported is only because of signed NDA agreements that don't allow them to publish anything, and like we saw in case of CoolWallet they happened before in Kraken report and here .

[Murpheus]

You have to be pretty much brain dead and dumb to think that everything that is open source automatically means that it is good and safe to use, because even viruses and malware can be open source.
Point of open source is to avoid any hidden code so that other developers and security experts can review it, find bugs and contribute with fixes, like in case with Bitcoin and Trezor wallet.
Closed source devices issues not being reported is only because of signed NDA agreements that don't allow them to publish anything, and like we saw in case of CoolWallet they happened before in Kraken report and here .

You misunderstood the point I was trying to make, I didn't say open source means it is safe to use! I only said it's not a reliable criterion to be used for judging if a program is safe

[Charles-Tim]

You have to be pretty much brain dead and dumb to think that...

Never mind me saying this: I think that is too hash, this is a forum to learn.

You misunderstood the point I was trying to make, I didn't say open source means it is safe to use! I only said it's not a reliable criterion to be used for judging if a program is safe

This world is very misleading, if something is faulty somewhere, it can lead to more fault in the future. I am not saying close source are faulty, but because the source code are not known to the public, it can lead to a means even legit close source wallets companies can introduce spyware to watch what you are doing on your wallet, it can even be other malware that will be introduced. Close source are not recommended at all, it is best to go for open source, we use it to store our keys that are used to access our cryptocurrencies, we must know everything going on about it, but close source can not let you know all what going on about your wallet. For safety and privacy, open source wallets should be used.