Topic: Foundation Passport (FE) hardware wallet review and walkthrough - page 3. (Read 1544 times)

Not in general terms, no.  But as it's "shipped" and in regards to the specific method of exporting PSBTs from a watch only wallet and transfer them via mSD, yes.  The Trezor One and comparably priced wallets that I know of don't have a micro SD slot.  My comments were regarding the discussion of using core to avoid the privacy concerns of using SPV clients (without your own server.)  And as far as I know there's no way to sign a PSBT without client to pair with the Trezor One.  I suppose one could just use an empty electrum wallet to sign and broadcast.



Interesting!  I would have assumed those would be defaults, even when building from source.  Thanks for the tip, I'm sure I would have overlooked that.



I hope they're lurking here reading your posts, you have a lot of great suggestions.

You mean Bitcoin Core is incompatible with more affordable hardware wallets?

I was mainly referring to an issue where -txindex really helped me out. At that point in time, I wasn't aware that you can't actually look up a transaction if you don't have that toggled on.
The default value of -dbcache can also easily be too high or too low depending on use case and hardware availability.

But this all refers to building from source. I'm not actually sure what options are toggled or not when getting Bitcoin-Qt binaries.

Yeah; I'd still like the 'camera verification' to work as intended though, since the inclusion of a camera is one of the biggest selling points of this device. So please make it usable anywhere that makes sense..

Still it's pretty straight forward.  Unfortunately however, incompatible with the more affordable hardware wallets on the market.



I reckon you've been down this road before.  Any other options you recommend I consider?  Might as well turn it into a rainy-month-of-sundays.  



Exactly.



That makes things more convenient.  I do trust in my ability to keep my rigs free of malware.  I've been at it long enough, so trust my clipboard with regular verification.

Yes, with Passport it's the same thing. Basically you transfer PSBTs back and forth using a microSD card.

Yeah, Bitcoin Core default / minimal install options don't include everything...

You mean verifying manually by putting the Passport in front of your monitor and comparing some addresses letter by letter?
Sure; you can always do that. It's worth mentioning that the text file which Passport writes to the microSD also includes a few addresses that can be checked against Bitcoin Core's address tab, too.

Nice.  I just imported a wallet from my ColdCard, which makes it easy.  However, it's just a watch only wallet used to export PSBTs.  In the process I noticed that my version of Bitcoin QT doesn't have external signer support, the option is greyed out on the GUI wallet-creation dialogue, and I get an error when I try from the console:


That's actually a pretty slick feature, I hope they fix it.  Although after thinking about it, I'm so anal I'd probably still end up verifying the address the old-fashioned way.

Okay, so I just tried following along the Foundation Devices' video and it did work fine-ish.
I like how Bitcoin Core is the very first option in the 'pair wallet' menu.

Unfortunately, the address verification fails, because the QR code from Bitcoin core (I checked using a QR code parser) contains 'bitcoin:BC1Q....', whereas passport expects the address in all lowercase.
My Passport is on the latest firmware version, so it's either possible that it worked when they made the video and something was broken between then and now, or it's possible that it never worked and was way at the bottom on some developer's todo-list and was never done. What suggests me this is that he doesn't show in the video how Passport scans and confirms the address. I will open a GitHub issue about this.

This conversation just got me thinking about the privacy aspect of using Core instead of an SPV client.  It's probably not something newbies are going to pursue unless it's super user-friendly and easy to set up, but it might make for a fun experiment nonetheless.  I think I'll add the experiment to my list of rainy day projects, and see if I can get the Trezor One to work with Core.

Alright! I may look into this in the future (I know - I say this a lot.. got too many ideas and projects for a single life..).

To me, it's definitely easier to connect to a personal Electrum server, this has been my go-to setup for what feels like forever. But I'm a person with a lot of devices and a lot of wallets, so it's always been easiest for me to have at least one box running a full node that I can access from anywhere, instead of running Bitcoin Core on my personal computers.
I wasn't aware of Bitcoin RPC being commonly used over the network though; only ever used that when accessing Core from the same machine. Last I checked it also had no encrypted authentication, so I believe it would be pretty risky to connect from phone to node through remote RPC.

For what it's worth, there is a guide for installing Bitcoin Core and Electrum on Windows here.

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I haven't! Thanks for this great suggestion; I will try at the latest when v2 arrives. Then I could check both devices back to back.

But they do have a video where they show how to do it with v1; it's under 10 minutes and explains everything quite well.
https://docs.foundationdevices.com/user-manual/software-wallets/bitcoin-core

@n0nce, have you tried to use the Passport with bitcoin core's external signer feature? 

Honestly, I've never played with the feature myself.  Since I do run my own electrum server I haven't been too concerned about the privacy issue, but I think more and more hardware wallet manufacturers should make integration with core more user friendly.

You nailed it ^{[I was hoping it'd have fewer node restrictions in comparison to Trezor Suite, but as things stand, it offers fewer options]}.
^{- I hope someone does the latter part of your quote.}

You have a point, but isn't it easier to just connect ^[directly] our Bitcoin Core nodes instead? As someone who uses Windows OS, I decided to not deal with the hassle of running an Electrum server in the past ^{[CMIIW but AFAIK, it's still a similar case for Windows users]}.

Yes, exactly

Totally missed that, you're right! I'd appreciate it since it's already flashy enough with all that gold colour..

What other types would you like to connect to? Bitcoin Core through RPC? I guess it can be requested and / or added and PR'ed when it goes live on GitHub. On the other hand, it's meant to be a basic, small-feature-set thing to get people started easily without focus on 'power users' for the time being, as far as I know.

You mean mask it with duct tape and spray paint it? That would work as a last resort, in case it's hard to take apart, sure.

Did they alter the foundation letters' color into black or is it just because of the reflection?

I was excited to see their app, but I'm a bit disappointed that it only supports certain types of nodes ^{[e.g. running on Tor and Electrum servers]}.
^{- Skip to "0:08 seconds on this" video.}

Or you can go with the traditional way of using duck tapes and plastics to cover other areas instead

Actually, yes; removing the paint is better than adding on top. Polish may do the trick. I hope these devices are easy to disassemble.. Fortunately, we will get open-source drawings which should help determining how to open it up without damage!
 
Yes, v1 has sufficient backlight (not in the bright sun, though). Version 2 has a totally new battery concept. Lithium-ion rechargeable battery instead of single-use Lithium AA. It's supposed to last longer and even if it won't, you can always just recharge, right. But nobody wants to sit around a pile of (fresh and used - since they need to be recycled) double-A's. As long as you stick to (very expensive) Lithium AA's, they will hold for a couple hours, too, but they're expensive and not as available to buy locally. Using Alkalines will result in the aforementioned pile.

Just tested:
Boot: 7 seconds to PIN screen, 6 seconds after that.
Shutdown: under 1 second (basically instant).

You're right: you won't run this for long periods of time. When I use it to sign a transaction, the time from turning it on to turning it back off is often under 1 minute including PIN entry and address verification. Large screen and nice handling (e.g. no cable sticking out, sits in hand well) makes it very easy and comfortable to do so quickly.

True; making it look less conspicuous would also be one of the reasons for me to remove the gold paint on the front buttons. I also expected v1 to be a lot larger than it really is, which means it quickly reveals that it's not a phone (too small), so larger size will be appreciated for 'rough opsec', as well.

It's important to note that the display brightness on v1 doesn't fade with dying battery. It stays on whatever you set it to, until the battery runs dry. It's possible that in the picture it wasn't set to max. brightness, but honestly the screen is not super bright, so I'm fairly confident v2 will be brighter. To be pedantic; colors actually have less contrast than pure black and white. But I need to see both side-by-side in person to really evaluate any screen improvements.

I like that it's slightly wider and taller, and even though it's not much thinner it makes the thickness more proportional over all.  The form factor makes it look like a small, cheap phone, which camouflages it from the uninitiated.  That's a good thing.



Not to stereotype my own race, but it looks like they have Arabs running their aesthetic design team.  



The display looks much brighter in the photos, but I wonder how much of that is due to the battery level on V1.  Anyway, my aging eyes are likely to appreciate the colors, sometimes it's easier to see contrasting colors other than black and white.

Anyway, I'm patiently waiting for your review...   And a Black Friday sale.  

If you are patient, then you can wait for the gold paint to rub off and come off on its own. Then you don't have to spray-paint.
 
It seems to me that a monochrome display would be quite enough. Does v.1 have a backlight? And is there a difference in battery life in v.1 and v.2? Does the color display consume more power?

I would also like to know how long it takes to turn passport on and off, if anyone has tested this? How fast does it happen? It makes no sense to keep the device constantly on, which means that most of the time it will be turned off and will be used only when necessary. I was always annoyed in some models of phones for a long turn on.

Looking good to me! I like how from the side and back it keeps the same black-gold-white 'sandwich' design aesthetic. Being a little larger is also welcome, since v1 is really really small. With the reduced thickness it may be possible to put in a small purse, pocket or similar without it sticking out. That's something I will test out in the real world when I get it.
Still not a fan of the golden buttons on the front; I consider taking them out and spray-painting them.. 

Color display wasn't really needed for me and the UI looks more cluttered; but I'm by far most curious to see what battery life it will have. It's a little funny 'anecdote' that the v1's batteries are actually almost empty when they took that picture. Really the biggest issue with v1.

I'm going to check out how to get that Envoy Beta; while the wallet works just fine with existing, 'tried and tested' software, I'm excited when a manufacturer puts in the time to create their own optional software with their own touch. The way I experienced Foundation Devices as a company so far, their code may be more trustable than e.g. very popular mobile wallet BlueWallet. I had a look at their application and the code a while back and noticed that you can get push notifications, which have to be issued by their server and then run through Google / Apple servers subsequently. Even if you set your own Electrum server (so the public keys / xpubs aren't sent to the company's server), notifications are still handled by their infrastructure. I contacted them about it, let's see if anything will change.

While we are waiting for n0nce to receive his new batch2 Passport wallet, I found some comparison images between old and new Passport devices.
We can see that new device is taller, thinner and it has much better screen, but I think that major improvement was made inside with new battery design.
All owners of Passport Founder’s Edition can apply for beta testing of their new Envoy app.

   

I've waited a bit longer than I thought for another update on Passport, but I wanted to have more than one thing to share.

First of all, it appears after multiple months of delays, things are speeding up now.
The price was increased from the 'preorder' price of $199 to the final price of $249; much closer to the 'batch 1' / 'v1' price of $299, but probably a better deal since it appears to be a bit better and costs almost 20% less. It also indicates that the 'shipping in July' notice seems realistic, as waiting more than a month, paying 'retail' (as opposed to the earlier 'preorder') price would be a bit of a ripoff.

They announced a 'very soon' deadline a lot of times already, but the price increase indicates to me that they're confident this time (fingers crossed).

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My second update to this thread is that after 5 months of frequent usage, I went through less batteries than I thought, but in some situations it's still pretty unconvenient / risky if you don't have 'Lithium' (not Lithium-Ion!) batteries.

To visualize this: if you set the screen brightness to the lowest setting and quickly turn on the device, enter your password, sign a PSBT on a microSD and turn it right back off, it consumes so little energy that you can use a set of batteries for months.
But if you do something more energy intensive, like a firmware upgrade, it drains the battery terrifyingly quickly; to the point where I was worried it would shut down during the upgrade and brick the device. So while I'd today say 'it's fine' using readily available Alkalines in everyday usage (and I still love the idea of using those) it's risky to run it on Alkalines for firmware upgrades or probably also stuff like device reset and restore operations. In that case, do get new (expensive) Lithium one-time-use batteries or hook up an external 3V power supply to the battery connectors.

Something like this could actually make sense for maximum safety:

I guess you have a lot to catch up on when it comes to hardware wallets. Luckily, you are in the right sub-board for that. Start reading the threads in the Hardware wallets sub that you think look interesting.

Let me give you a few recommendations and then we should get out of this thread because this discussion is about the Foundation Passport and not HWs in general. If you have additional questions, ask in the appropriate threads.

[BIG LIST] Hardware wallets (80+)
This is a big list of popular and not so popular HWs.

Open Source Hardware Wallets
This is a shorter one focusing only on devices that are open-source.

Show off your hardware wallet
Here you can take a look at some picture posted by forum members and see how they look in real life.

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Sorry n0nce...

Whao! @n0nce, this is one in series of hardware wallet review I have ever seen. At first I thought hardware wallet is meant only for Fiat physical currency while software wallet is for online banking and transactions but today I have come to fully understand the hardware wallet.

After reading the OP, I also made some research to see more hardware wallets and to understand it more, then I came to see different kinds of hardware wallets.


Flash drive like and cell phone like hardware wallets and I was wow!!!

https://www.google.com/search?q=hardware+wallet&client=ms-android-transsion-itel-rev1&prmd=inv&sxsrf=ALiCzsYnOJiQ_iHd_joKghamx8pKYRKe6A:1654468865318&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjohonosJf4AhVThM4BHcv4CCwQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=320&bih=512&dpr=1.5



zherbert, in any electronic device that uses battery. Battery is the most important feature of the device. If the battery is not strong the device is useless. If you can see the cell phone technological world, those cell phones that have weak battery are not popular in the market. Therefore, with this review even though you can't retrieve all the batteries that have been produced and sent, the new ones you are to produce should be improved to stay longer for good recommendation.

I am also using AAA batteries for my Satellite Decoder Remote now and the batteries are better than Tiger batteries.