Rant-Hardware Wallet Physical Quality

[DaveF]

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

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

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

-Dave

[Alphakilo]

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

[m2017]

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

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

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

[NeuroticFish]

but has the physical quality of all HW wallets crap

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

[satscraper]

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

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

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

-Dave

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

[DaveF]

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

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

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

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

-Dave

[Beparanf]

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

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

[zherbert]

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

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

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

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

-Dave

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

[DaveF]

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

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


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

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

Now it's just an annoyance.

-Dave

[mindrust]

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

Hardware wallets: A solution looking for a problem.

[DaveF]

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

Hardware wallets: A solution looking for a problem.

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

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

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

-Dave

[Pmalek]

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

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

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

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

[Lucius]

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

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

[alexeyneu]

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

[Pmalek]

i do not trust this stuff too.

What stuff exactly?

you can use tangem , ballet or billfodl

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

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

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

[alexeyneu]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Pmalek]

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

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

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

If you take a look at Jameson Lopp's Billfodl stress test, you will notice that it failed the heat and crush test. It didn't get a good grade.

[dkbit98]

So a bit of a rant here, but has the physical quality of all HW wallets crap. Or is it just me?

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

Two trezors with bad USB ports

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[alexeyneu]

Satochip beats Tangem every time, it's open source, cheap and durable.

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

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

[dkbit98]

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

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