To me the primary attribute for cold storage is durability.
If I print out a deterministic wallet seed key on multiple copies of acid free paper and laminate and store them, this is guaranteed to last centuries (with the exception of theft or destruction). If there is a problem with one copy, others exist. If there are problems with all copies, advanced methods exist to read old paper and extract the information.
So how durable are these things? Do they rely on physical hardware chips? Hardware fails all the time. Additionally are there multiple storage elements inside in case one or more components fail? If all hardware components fail, how can you extract the keys?
My point is cold storage needs to be durable and remove any central points of failure. Without this there is a lot of risk. With paper backups risks are much lower. (Yes there is theft and fire, but these issues exist for this device as well)
All valid points- this device is based off NFC technology which is quite durable. That said however, the idea is to use them in multiples where each one holds the key to one of the private keys required of some m-of-n Multisig transaction. So in this case you can plan for the possibility of failure: a possibility that does exist for paper as well (fire, etc....). The method of failure may be different, but statistically, it's still failure.
The Multiple storage elements in each case is a good idea though, and should be technically possibly with the newer NFC chips. That would increase reliability although one has to consider what the percent of failure would be related to just the hardware failing versus the whole device being somehow compromised/destroyed/lost/etc....
I don't have anything against paper backups, I think they are a smart and reliable way of storing your bitcoin. That said, I think paper backups have some human disadvantageous that can in themselves lead to loss of bitcoins unintentionally. For one- it's going to be very hard to protect your acid free paper from prying eyes. Even if you put it into a bank vault it will be hard to be sure no one has seen your private keys. Paper wallets have no system to guarantee the integrity of their 'secrets'. Sure you could do things like sign over the envelope opening or use a hologram/wax seal, but these are all pretty easy to defeat in terms of security measures. Additionally, it's going to be very hard to be sure, when you do go to redeem your bitcoins, that you are actually redeeming your original paper wallet, and that it hasn't been swapped out for a decoy at some interim point. An attacker could swap out your encrypted paper wallet for a decoy with some small error in the private key, trick you into attempting to redeem your keys (and observe you entering your password- or even more sneakly, set themselves up to be the person you ask to 'try it themselves' while you freak out that it's not working) take your password and redeem the real copy of the backup.
I've got lots of scenarios like that in my head. :-)
Additionally, paper wallets don't particularly look valuable to non-bitcoin people. I've had paper wallets accidentally thrown out because they looked like trash. A really well done paper wallet should ideally just be a sheet of paper filled with seemingly random characters. That looks like trash to most people, and could get your fortune shredded or trashed without much of a second though. I'm not sure about your bank, but at one of mine, the safe deposit box I have has insurance stipulations attached. This device could help to develop an insurance condition regarding when they consider that your deposit box has been compromised. It's not insignificant that the device is virtually impossible to counterfeit. If your device is intact, in one piece, then you know it's secure. The NFC technology has its own layers of security- you can check to see exactly how many times the device has been scanned. So if your device is in one piece, if it's scan counter is unchanged, if the authenticity stamp inside the chip is correct, then you know with pretty high certainty that your device is still secure. It's hard to say that of a piece of laminated paper.
This device is not only durable in terms of hardware (not as durable as paper, but you have to compensate for that with numbers) but it's also durable itself. It's glass, designed to break when you really intend to break it (IE: with a hammer or something) and looks valuable in-and-of-itself, meaning people are highly unlikely to trash if they just stumble across it. Despite the fact that it has a somewhat familiar "shape" to some people, the device looks unlike anything probably anyone has in their normal life. Meaning it will stand out in any situation.
My device is not a Trezor, offline signing wallet, or piece of paper. It's a device that is intended for a small segment of bitcoiners who would like to add a durable, secure and luxurious addition to their security planning. It looks *really* good. You buy three, keep one at home, one with your lawyer and one in a safe deposit box. Or buy five, and put them on all the continents. If you are paranoid about device failure- you presign a transaction to an escape address and then protect the priv-key of that transaction and escape address in some different fashion. If the device fails, you broadcast the transaction, and the bitcoins move onto your escape address. Of course, the more complicated your security procedure, the more prone to error it might be, but it's doable. Indeed you could encrypt the presigned transaction with the serial from inside the device, meaning you only need the physical remains of the device (not the NFC chip) to decrypt the presigned transaction. This way you keep all your 'secrets' with the devices and need only keep track of them.
