Foundation Passport Official Thread

[foundationdvcs]

In general I can count on fingers all Android Bitcoin wallets, and most of them are not good.
Good mobile wallet should be open source, with option to run full node and option to connect with multiple brand of hardware wallets, or to work standalone.

I've tried Envoy and it connects to my electrs server running on my Bitcoin node over Tor without issues.
One thing I'd appreciate is some kind of (hidden) log view where you can see whether / if it is stuck somewhere, e.g. when connecting to Tor, connecting to the server or something else. Just to make troubleshooting easier.

Noted, we do have some logging now that can be triggered but it has to be viewed externally. Will raise an internal issue on this!

Join our Envoy and Passport Early Access Rewards Program & Earn Bitcoin!

 Be the first to report any reproducible issue for Passport or Envoy beta releases and get a 10k Satoshi bounty in Bitcoin!

That sounds great! I usually try beta releases anyways, so I'll make sure to create GitHub issues whenever I find some bug or issue, from now on.
How about more hardware based issues / bugs / vulnerabilities?

Absolutely! We do have a separate vulnerabilities program for security issues that should be used for those types of reports, but for general bugs or issues they can definitely be submitted on Github. Our focus with the Early Access Rewards program is testing out firmware releases, but if you submit issues in Github that are tangential we'll take them on a case-by-case basis if they're fitting for rewards.

I've tried Envoy and it connects to my electrs server running on my Bitcoin node over Tor without issues.

Do you know what is oldest Android version needed to run Envoy.
I tried on one older phone and I couldn't install it, and I even tried directly with .apk file, forced install but I could not open the app.

The minimum version is Android 10 for Envoy. Pro tip, you can check in the Play Store under "About" and it will list the "Required OS" versions!

[Pmalek]

Do you know what is oldest Android version needed to run Envoy.
I tried on one older phone and I couldn't install it, and I even tried directly with .apk file, forced install but I could not open the app.

I don't think you will have success running it on an outdated Android OS. It requires Android 10 and newer according to the information available on the About page on the Play Store. You can check it here. Click on the arrow next to About this app and it will display the needed information.

Edit: Oops, seems like foundationdvcs was about 2 mins faster.

[foundationdvcs]

Do you know what is oldest Android version needed to run Envoy.
I tried on one older phone and I couldn't install it, and I even tried directly with .apk file, forced install but I could not open the app.

I don't think you will have success running it on an outdated Android OS. It requires Android 10 and newer according to the information available on the About page on the Play Store. You can check it here. Click on the arrow next to About this app and it will display the needed information.

Edit: Oops, seems like foundationdvcs was about 2 mins faster.

Great minds think alike 

[dkbit98]

I don't think 3D printing works with electronic components. Except for maybe the case as dkbit98 hinted.

It's not that hard to make your of PCB's, I saw many tutorials posted online, but it can be tricky if you are doing it for the first time.

Where's that?

I was thinking this could be possible in theory  

I'm not sure, but according to their docs, Flutter apps should run on Android versions that support the API version 21 to 34

Hmmm that's strange, it should work.
I even tried it one Android emulator with newer Android version but I couldn't start Envoy app.
Most of the other apps I checked before in my testing worked just with this emulator.

The minimum version is Android 10 for Envoy. Pro tip, you can check in the Play Store under "About" and it will list the "Required OS" versions!

How about pro tip for people who are using de-g00gled phones

[JayJuanGee]

The minimum version is Android 10 for Envoy. Pro tip, you can check in the Play Store under "About" and it will list the "Required OS" versions!

How about pro tip for people who are using de-g00gled phones

I know.. I know.. I know.. I am not exactly on topic, but I feel that I must say that it seems to me that you dkbit98 are more correct in the "proper" usage of the term "pro tip."

Usually a person would not necessarily want say "pro tip" for something that is actually serious.. because it does not tend to come off well, unless such person is wanting to be a bit facetious, ironic or even purposefully funny (or maybe even patronizingly funny to emphasize a point).. even though surely from a technical angle (which is admittedly scary for me to even think about my own personally attempting to de-googlizing all of my thing-a-lies), you are asking a question that you would like answered.. which is a kind of bonus.

[foundationdvcs]

The minimum version is Android 10 for Envoy. Pro tip, you can check in the Play Store under "About" and it will list the "Required OS" versions!

How about pro tip for people who are using de-g00gled phones

I'll bring it up with the team, would be good to have minimum requirements listed on the Github/alongside releases if it changes!

The minimum version is Android 10 for Envoy. Pro tip, you can check in the Play Store under "About" and it will list the "Required OS" versions!

How about pro tip for people who are using de-g00gled phones

I know.. I know.. I know.. I am not exactly on topic, but I feel that I must say that it seems to me that you dkbit98 are more correct in the "proper" usage of the term "pro tip."

Usually a person would not necessarily want say "pro tip" for something that is actually serious.. because it does not tend to come off well, unless such person is wanting to be a bit facetious, ironic or even purposefully funny (or maybe even patronizingly funny to emphasize a point).. even though surely from a technical angle (which is admittedly scary for me to even think about my own personally attempting to de-googlizing all of my thing-a-lies), you are asking a question that you would like answered.. which is a kind of bonus.

Apologies if my initial comment came off negatively, I simply meant it to be helpful and didn't realize the connotations it could carry! The Play Store doesn't make it immediately apparent how to check the minimum Android version of apps.

[satscraper]

I have already entertained thoughts of  DIY Passport. After studying their docs I have understood that the most challenging for me part of  such DIY project would be  the making of multilayer printed circuit board rather than 3d printing. For me, it would be hard, even impossible, to make at home.

You should be able to just upload the Gerber files to a PCB manufacturer like PCBWay and get them to assemble the board for you, as well. Then print the housing, add keypad, camera and screen and put it all together.

I do think it's worth it to just buy the completed product from Foundation though.

It would cost, in my estimation more then half of the current price for Passport 2.Thus, after pondering on pros and cons ( time, money and nerves spent to do something wrong) for DIY Passport project I have took the red pill and bought the off-the-peg product.

My only regret is that I have bought it right two weeks before they reduced the price.

[Nellyj200x]

I wrote a small program that allows you to quickly check if a Bitcoin file has a transaction in it, and also checks whether it is a valid Bitcoin file and whether it is locked.
https://github.com/Humble2020/BitcoinFile-Verifier

[foundationdvcs]

I have already entertained thoughts of  DIY Passport. After studying their docs I have understood that the most challenging for me part of  such DIY project would be  the making of multilayer printed circuit board rather than 3d printing. For me, it would be hard, even impossible, to make at home.

You should be able to just upload the Gerber files to a PCB manufacturer like PCBWay and get them to assemble the board for you, as well. Then print the housing, add keypad, camera and screen and put it all together.

I do think it's worth it to just buy the completed product from Foundation though.

It would cost, in my estimation more then half of the current price for Passport 2.Thus, after pondering on pros and cons ( time, money and nerves spent to do something wrong) for DIY Passport project I have took the red pill and bought the off-the-peg product.

My only regret is that I have bought it right two weeks before they reduced the price.

Please be sure to submit this form if you bought it just before the price decrease, we understand that it could have been frustrating and we've shared this broadly as a part of the price reduction:

https://foundationdevices.com/price-reduction/

That is good for any purchase in the 90d leading up to the price reduction.

[satscraper]

I have already entertained thoughts of  DIY Passport. After studying their docs I have understood that the most challenging for me part of  such DIY project would be  the making of multilayer printed circuit board rather than 3d printing. For me, it would be hard, even impossible, to make at home.

You should be able to just upload the Gerber files to a PCB manufacturer like PCBWay and get them to assemble the board for you, as well. Then print the housing, add keypad, camera and screen and put it all together.

I do think it's worth it to just buy the completed product from Foundation though.

It would cost, in my estimation more then half of the current price for Passport 2.Thus, after pondering on pros and cons ( time, money and nerves spent to do something wrong) for DIY Passport project I have took the red pill and bought the off-the-peg product.

My only regret is that I have bought it right two weeks before they reduced the price.

Please be sure to submit this form if you bought it just before the price decrease, we understand that it could have been frustrating and we've shared this broadly as a part of the price reduction:

https://foundationdevices.com/price-reduction/

That is good for any purchase in the 90d leading up to the price reduction.

It appears to be  not applicable to my case as I have bought Passport 2 from distributor  in a semi anonymous way during my business trip within EU. $50 is not a money which would force me to fill the form that requires some purchasing data (though restricted ones). Anyway, thanks for your generosity and  nice hardware wallet. I'm fully satisfied with my Passport 2.

[joniboini]

Is there any plan to add more resellers, especially in the Asia region? I'm trying to buy your product but the shipping cost from your store or the closest reseller might be a bit problematic. Or do people need to apply before you add them to your reseller lists?

[foundationdvcs]

Is there any plan to add more resellers, especially in the Asia region? I'm trying to buy your product but the shipping cost from your store or the closest reseller might be a bit problematic. Or do people need to apply before you add them to your reseller lists?

We absolutely do have plans to grow our reseller network, and are in talks with multiple new resellers in other regions ATM. We do require applications before we add resellers so we can do some basic vetting to ensure that people are getting legitimate devices etc.

If you know of anyone interested in becoming a reseller in Asia or a store you'd simply like to see carry Passport, please don't hesitate to point them to hello@foundationdevices.com and we can take it from there!

[foundationdvcs]

Morning, all 

Just wanted to share a fantasticly thorough and well-written review of Passport that just dropped from a Bitcoin educational site called Athena Alpha:

https://www.athena-alpha.com/foundation-passport-review/

[satscraper]

Morning, all  

Just wanted to share a fantasticly thorough and well-written review of Passport that just dropped from a Bitcoin educational site called Athena Alpha:

https://www.athena-alpha.com/foundation-passport-review/

Clearly fact-based review. My personal opinion, its  cons section is for the thing born. If there are pros then you bound to include  cons. But for me their cons are flimsy especially when they refer to the  text readability on the screen. Also the price point is arguable as there are wallets with the price which almost twice as much as the current price of Passport2.

[foundationdvcs]

Morning, all  

Just wanted to share a fantasticly thorough and well-written review of Passport that just dropped from a Bitcoin educational site called Athena Alpha:

https://www.athena-alpha.com/foundation-passport-review/

Clearly fact-based review. My personal opinion, its  cons section is for the thing born. If there are pros then you bound to include  cons. But for me their cons are flimsy especially when they refer to the  text readability on the screen. Also the price point is arguable as there are wallets with the price which almost twice as much as the current price of Passport2.

Agreed, we were surprised because this is the first complaint we've ever received over text sizes on-screen! But to each their own, Athena Alpha were very responsive and updated their post with a few minor nits we picked after reading it initially and have been fantastic to work with throughout.

[dkbit98]

Just wanted to share a fantasticly thorough and well-written review of Passport that just dropped from a Bitcoin educational site called Athena Alpha:

Well written review, but not as good as review made by n0nce in bitcointalk forum a while ago
I like what athena-alpha is doing with their rating system and comparisons for wallets and exchanges, but it can be a bit bias sometimes.


 

[satscraper]

@foundationdvcs, could I suggest a small feature to device's GUI. In the upper right corner of the screen there is a small battery icon. Is it possible to add into GUI without much pain the option to show battery percentage near that icon? Device uses lithium-ion battery and to prolong its life time it is very important to start charging procedure when it reaches  certain depth of discharge. Knowing of exact battery capacity left would be highly mattered in this case.

[foundationdvcs]

@foundationdvcs, could I suggest a small feature to device's GUI. In the upper right corner of the screen there is a small battery icon. Is it possible to add into GUI without much pain the option to show battery percentage near that icon? Device uses lithium-ion battery and to prolong its life time it is very important to start charging procedure when it reaches  certain depth of discharge. Knowing of exact battery capacity left would be highly mattered in this case.

I'll bring this to the team, but my gut tells me it would be quite hard to fit a legible percentage in the corner there!

Will see what we can come up with, I'd love the same personally 

[foundationdvcs]

Check your email inbox for a quick survey and win up to 1.5M sats 👀

An email is going out to all of those subscribed to our email list to take a brief survey, but if you purchased Passport and chose not to provide an email (for instance at a conference) please shoot us a message or reply here and we can validate your purchase and share the link directly.

As we take a privacy-preserving approach to everything we do, your feedback around Passport and Envoy enable us to incorporate feedback that we choose not to gather through invasive analytics or tracking!

Thank you again for helping us continue to fulfill our vision of technology that empowers you, the user, and we can’t wait to show you what we’re working on next in the coming months.

Onward.

[Athena Alpha]

Morning, all  

Just wanted to share a fantasticly thorough and well-written review of Passport that just dropped from a Bitcoin educational site called Athena Alpha:

https://www.athena-alpha.com/foundation-passport-review/

Clearly fact-based review. My personal opinion, its  cons section is for the thing born. If there are pros then you bound to include  cons. But for me their cons are flimsy especially when they refer to the  text readability on the screen. Also the price point is arguable as there are wallets with the price which almost twice as much as the current price of Passport2.

Agreed, we were surprised because this is the first complaint we've ever received over text sizes on-screen! But to each their own, Athena Alpha were very responsive and updated their post with a few minor nits we picked after reading it initially and have been fantastic to work with throughout.

Thanks all for the praise

One of the main goals with our reviews / rating system is to ensure that it's highly focused on security and privacy for the users, not just raw features. The other very important aspect is to make it as transparent and fair as possible. Most review sites just pick random numbers / stars from no where and give zero reasons why something might be "more secure" than something else.

In contrast, our Rating Methodology gives full details as to how and why we rank and rate things the way we do. No other site that we know of does this. To go even further, we even allow anyone (manufacturer or users) to see the raw JSON data for every hardware wallet in our database so they can verify that we're not just making things up or have incorrect data. If you find a mistake, let us know and we'll happily fix it

Regarding text size, it's very common across most HWWs to have quite small text. It's by no means impossible to read, but most are small. A huge percentage of the population (especially 30+ people) have vision issues, wear glasses or just can't see "perfectly", so smaller text isn't great. When it comes to HWWs though their main use is to confirm that the address on your computer screen matches what's on the HWWs screen. Having small text while comparing a huge string of random letters and numbers is NOT fun and even with 20/20 vision will lead to more mistakes which can likely mean lost funds.

We know some prefer the text to be small, as it's more secure, but for devices like the Passport that have quite big screens we were hopeful that it would also mean big text too. We're hopeful that wallet manufacturers at the very least start to allow users to increase text size dynamically in the future, or make bigger screens.

Just wanted to share a fantasticly thorough and well-written review of Passport that just dropped from a Bitcoin educational site called Athena Alpha:

Well written review, but not as good as review made by n0nce in bitcointalk forum a while ago
I like what athena-alpha is doing with their rating system and comparisons for wallets and exchanges, but it can be a bit bias sometimes.

Thank you as well! We try as much as possible to ensure it's focused on what users need such as security, privacy and features that will help their device last for a long time and support them as they grow such as ease of use, Multisig, USB-C, microSD backups etc but we obviously can't include everything (although our database is extensive!) so we do have to pick and choose things. Please let us know if there's anything major and we can certainly take it under consideration