I know, right? I've seen every electronic device you can mount to a gun -- lights, sights, lasers, etc. -- fail, and these were rugged devices, like a Streamlight TLR-1.
I suppose they're nothing wrong with a biometric firearm if and only if that it what a person desired, but to have it shoved up our, I mean down our throats is.
Manufactured with microchips made in China what could possibly go wrong.
If the government(s) can hack your computer at what will make me believe that they could not hack this gizmo. And until it is thoroughly tested by an independent source it is just another gizmo.
Sorry I'll stick with my Detective Special, 1911, or BHP.
It looks like the trigger is exposed when the gun is in the charging cradle. I don't like that.
"They’re going to get these bugs worked out in the next couple of months.” Sounds like a payment line to me. A normal person would say "we'll see if they can work these bugs out."
I don't trust self-driving cars and they've had a lot more money thrown at them. I'm certainly not going to trust a smart gun yet. Prove your reliability by making a smart holster first.
Another ugly gun. At least you could take the Edsel for a test drive. I wouldn't buy one of those things even if hickok45 pronounced it the greatest thing since God invented watermelons and mankind dug wells to cool them in.
There is no mechanical link between the trigger and the action. That's the end of the discussion, there is no way that it's as reliable over time as an actual pistol
The smart gun mandates never apply to the police - this pretty much tells me what I need to know about the reliability, and that NJ considers this a feature, not a bug.
I am not a fan of this technology, facial/fingerprint recognition for a mechanical device such as a gun – this would be more accurately called a bio-imprinted password.
Essentially all this product has done has taken the fingerprint scan and/or facial scan and converted the biological information into a mathematical formula i.e. a hash value (see MD5) it won’t need an internet connection to run the cryptographic algorithm, the scans or the monitoring and storage of the values to compare against.
Now while this bio-recognition lock might be a product better versus with fumbling with a manual key lock or pin-pads in a middle of the night stressful situation, it still in my opinion has far more cons than pros.
Since most gun owners, expect to not only own keep their firearms for their lifetimes they also hope that they will bequeath their firearms to their family and still last for generations. This product given current technology puts battery replacement life at about once every 2-3 years and memory replacement at about every 10 years. Also this is a product that could be exposed to extreme environmental conditions, dropped, heat-humidity, rain, puddles etc how is the memory, electronics and battery protected to prevent damage.
Con#1 “Battery”: Regardless of how long a battery life it has it still at some point must be charged to be usable as designed; and with all rechargeable devices battery replacement will also be an issue and how is the memory of the “computer” managed with a dead or replaced battery. Keeping in mind that the battery could still be perfectly fine with over 300 to 500 charge cycles, but it could also fail sooner (how have they tested and gone through the battery manufacturer selection -cheapest and lowest quality or highest cost and most reliability) what kind of testing was performed to get the products anticipated life before replacement. – if the battery is damaged or being recharged what is protecting the owner from run away thermal issues.
Con#2 “Memory”: Depending on the memory and compression technology used can the stored hash values become corrupt over time, or lost? The electrical charge stored in a flash memory cells degrades over time, and will degrade much faster at extended temperatures; also the more you use a memory this type of memory cards, the more likely it is to degrade over time. A typical memory card can go through 10,000 to 1 million “write/erase” cycles before failing rates increase, but also sitting idle “cold” no electrical charge for extended periods will also cause corruption as the memory cells lose electrical charge. Also like the battery their is a finite physical age limit, typically 10 years. Keeping in mind that the memory could still be perfectly fine with over 2 million write/erase cycles and older then 10 years, but it could also fail sooner (how have they tested and gone through the memory manufacturer selection; their is a finite amount of times before it becomes unusable. -cheapest and lowest quality or highest cost and most reliability) what kind of testing was performed to get the products anticipated life before replacement.
Con#3 “motherboard”: If treated well and kept clean, a motherboard typically lasts between 10-20 years, though it is possible to last longer. This application of smart gun, could also put cleaning solvents and oils in contact with the motherboard(s) causing damage. Which means replacing the hardware with what will eventually become obsolete, and you may need to upgrade to the latest hardware.
Con#4 “reliability”: Facial and fingerprint recognition is vastly improved from a few years ago, but error rates are still high especially in the facial and in controlled settings are much more accurate then in real life scenarios. Also keep in mind that similarity scores and comparison thresholds to account for the false negative rates and false positive rates (families are going to look very similar – if your trying to prevent your daughter who looks a lot like her mom from accessing the gun, this could be a problem if the wife is the owner, or some other similar scenarios, like identical twins, etc. Then you have the recognition “racial” demographic biases, non-whites will find this product to have a much higher rate of false positives and will prevent the gun owner from accessing, especially in a need to defend type of situation.
Con#5 “quick to lock”: The manufacturer states that this product locks near immediately so anything from changing your hand grip location, changing the grip force from loose to tight, to switching hands temporarily and with the reliability factors, could lock out the owner when needed in a scenario where you are walking your house looking for the “source” of the late noise.
Con#6 “Software reliability and upgrades”: Since no one has been able to independently verify it at this moment we have to rely on the manufacturers statement that this is what they are doing and given their descriptions we can assume that they are probably doing what they claim they are. However, at some point we can trust but will need to verify; take the electronics apart and verify no Wi-Fi/Bluetooth or other radio communications chips or antennas are on the motherboard(s) and also to have a radio spectrum analyzer running to see if broadcasts are occurring. Also how is full manufacturer reset, or software updates (bugs/fixes) deployed when owners change in the case of reselling, or in the case of bequeathing to new a owner, or fixing a software flaw, or software algorithm improvements
Pulling out the old "retired Navy SEAL" shtick makes me even more skeptical.
Me too.
Trying to think of something just as bad that was introduced to the public. Oh yeah...... Tony Fauci.
LOL!!
Phony Fauci!
Everything about this screams it's trash. I wonder if you drop it does it break or fire lol.
I know, right? I've seen every electronic device you can mount to a gun -- lights, sights, lasers, etc. -- fail, and these were rugged devices, like a Streamlight TLR-1.
Exactly. Also I'm not sure the biometrics scanner will work very good in the cold or dust.
Is the biometric scanner linked to an individual’s fingerprints while gripping the weapon? If so, what happens if the shooter is wearing gloves?
I’m not ready to bet my life on this unproven technology.
I suppose they're nothing wrong with a biometric firearm if and only if that it what a person desired, but to have it shoved up our, I mean down our throats is.
Manufactured with microchips made in China what could possibly go wrong.
If the government(s) can hack your computer at what will make me believe that they could not hack this gizmo. And until it is thoroughly tested by an independent source it is just another gizmo.
Sorry I'll stick with my Detective Special, 1911, or BHP.
That's it. There may be a lot of folks out there who want one of these, but the manufacturer should be honest about their QC and other issues.
Gee, I just tried to post my comment and there was a "Something went wrong" so I tried again and it posted. I do not have faith in modern technology.
Some thoughts:
It looks like the trigger is exposed when the gun is in the charging cradle. I don't like that.
"They’re going to get these bugs worked out in the next couple of months.” Sounds like a payment line to me. A normal person would say "we'll see if they can work these bugs out."
I don't trust self-driving cars and they've had a lot more money thrown at them. I'm certainly not going to trust a smart gun yet. Prove your reliability by making a smart holster first.
Another informative article, Lee!
Thanks, RB.
What if you're wearing gloves and/or sunglasses?
My point exactly.
Another ugly gun. At least you could take the Edsel for a test drive. I wouldn't buy one of those things even if hickok45 pronounced it the greatest thing since God invented watermelons and mankind dug wells to cool them in.
Needlessly complex introducing another potential point of failure (or more). Ludicrous. (For the vocabulary challenged, that means it's a silly idea.)
There is no mechanical link between the trigger and the action. That's the end of the discussion, there is no way that it's as reliable over time as an actual pistol
Oops. Forgot to change the batteries.
You’re Dead!
The smart gun mandates never apply to the police - this pretty much tells me what I need to know about the reliability, and that NJ considers this a feature, not a bug.
I am not a fan of this technology, facial/fingerprint recognition for a mechanical device such as a gun – this would be more accurately called a bio-imprinted password.
Essentially all this product has done has taken the fingerprint scan and/or facial scan and converted the biological information into a mathematical formula i.e. a hash value (see MD5) it won’t need an internet connection to run the cryptographic algorithm, the scans or the monitoring and storage of the values to compare against.
Now while this bio-recognition lock might be a product better versus with fumbling with a manual key lock or pin-pads in a middle of the night stressful situation, it still in my opinion has far more cons than pros.
Since most gun owners, expect to not only own keep their firearms for their lifetimes they also hope that they will bequeath their firearms to their family and still last for generations. This product given current technology puts battery replacement life at about once every 2-3 years and memory replacement at about every 10 years. Also this is a product that could be exposed to extreme environmental conditions, dropped, heat-humidity, rain, puddles etc how is the memory, electronics and battery protected to prevent damage.
Con#1 “Battery”: Regardless of how long a battery life it has it still at some point must be charged to be usable as designed; and with all rechargeable devices battery replacement will also be an issue and how is the memory of the “computer” managed with a dead or replaced battery. Keeping in mind that the battery could still be perfectly fine with over 300 to 500 charge cycles, but it could also fail sooner (how have they tested and gone through the battery manufacturer selection -cheapest and lowest quality or highest cost and most reliability) what kind of testing was performed to get the products anticipated life before replacement. – if the battery is damaged or being recharged what is protecting the owner from run away thermal issues.
Con#2 “Memory”: Depending on the memory and compression technology used can the stored hash values become corrupt over time, or lost? The electrical charge stored in a flash memory cells degrades over time, and will degrade much faster at extended temperatures; also the more you use a memory this type of memory cards, the more likely it is to degrade over time. A typical memory card can go through 10,000 to 1 million “write/erase” cycles before failing rates increase, but also sitting idle “cold” no electrical charge for extended periods will also cause corruption as the memory cells lose electrical charge. Also like the battery their is a finite physical age limit, typically 10 years. Keeping in mind that the memory could still be perfectly fine with over 2 million write/erase cycles and older then 10 years, but it could also fail sooner (how have they tested and gone through the memory manufacturer selection; their is a finite amount of times before it becomes unusable. -cheapest and lowest quality or highest cost and most reliability) what kind of testing was performed to get the products anticipated life before replacement.
Con#3 “motherboard”: If treated well and kept clean, a motherboard typically lasts between 10-20 years, though it is possible to last longer. This application of smart gun, could also put cleaning solvents and oils in contact with the motherboard(s) causing damage. Which means replacing the hardware with what will eventually become obsolete, and you may need to upgrade to the latest hardware.
Con#4 “reliability”: Facial and fingerprint recognition is vastly improved from a few years ago, but error rates are still high especially in the facial and in controlled settings are much more accurate then in real life scenarios. Also keep in mind that similarity scores and comparison thresholds to account for the false negative rates and false positive rates (families are going to look very similar – if your trying to prevent your daughter who looks a lot like her mom from accessing the gun, this could be a problem if the wife is the owner, or some other similar scenarios, like identical twins, etc. Then you have the recognition “racial” demographic biases, non-whites will find this product to have a much higher rate of false positives and will prevent the gun owner from accessing, especially in a need to defend type of situation.
Con#5 “quick to lock”: The manufacturer states that this product locks near immediately so anything from changing your hand grip location, changing the grip force from loose to tight, to switching hands temporarily and with the reliability factors, could lock out the owner when needed in a scenario where you are walking your house looking for the “source” of the late noise.
Con#6 “Software reliability and upgrades”: Since no one has been able to independently verify it at this moment we have to rely on the manufacturers statement that this is what they are doing and given their descriptions we can assume that they are probably doing what they claim they are. However, at some point we can trust but will need to verify; take the electronics apart and verify no Wi-Fi/Bluetooth or other radio communications chips or antennas are on the motherboard(s) and also to have a radio spectrum analyzer running to see if broadcasts are occurring. Also how is full manufacturer reset, or software updates (bugs/fixes) deployed when owners change in the case of reselling, or in the case of bequeathing to new a owner, or fixing a software flaw, or software algorithm improvements
How many people will die because the biometrics fail to activate the firearm. This is a really bad idea.
I can’t even get my biometrics to work 1 out of 3 times on a small safe.
I would never trust biometrics on a firearm or one of my big safes.
Bad idea!
Sounds like a yeet cannon with lipstick on it.