This video shows two testers setting up a Billconch fingerprint safe on a cable, pulling it off a mock car seat by hand, and checking what fits inside.
One tester reached the five-minute setup cutoff with a little coaching. The other could not get past the admin password in that time. In the pull test the first safe came free in less than a minute, and the film says the weak point was the wire, not the safe.
For fit, a phone, a P365 and a Maxim 9 with a suppressor went in. A laptop and an M4 chambered in .22 did not. Firearms are stored unloaded.
The written account is in our Billconch car safe test article, and the whole comparison is on the pull test page.
Transcript
0:00 Two, this is our [...] safe. So we were just at our [...] safe. Now we're at our [...] safe. This is the Billconch. It's got over 6,000 reviews, 4.7, highly rated safe. I think it looks like a pretty good product. It's got biometrics, it's got digital. We're going to see how long it takes to set it up, see if it's intuitive, and then we'll do some tests on it. So here we go, boys. On your marks. Get set, go.
0:30 So it's a pretty thick gauge safe. It feels like it was pretty heavy. The thing about this, what we're doing now, is just straight out of the box, they got to learn about it, they got to figure it out themselves, and see how long it takes. In theory, that's a good setup for someone that's at home, someone that's going to get to set their house. How long is it going to take you to set up? Maybe you're not doing a competition, but is it a good safe? Is it something that I can actually do, or am I going to be returning this thing because I can't figure it out?
1:12 The key on this bad boy, it's a nicer key than what was on the [...] safe. I forget the name, but it's got the cuts that are inside the key, which is harder to manufacture, harder to fake, if you knew how to fake a key. But it's not a disc detainer key, which is kind of the gold standard right now. We use the gold standard on the Boosted Safe, but this is probably a good second tier option.
1:42 So we've got our... Lance has already moved on to the cable. Remember, we have to have at least one unique code put on the safe as well, and then the safe securely attached to the chair, and that's how we're going to know that your setup is complete. We're in about a minute 20 so far, and these guys are working quick, doing some good work.
2:08 My favorite thing about seeing all these different safes is that I'm a safe manufacturer, and I get to learn what are the best things that other people are doing, and if there's something that we could do better, let's do it, because I want to have the very best safe possible. So far, the [...] safe, terrible. [...] safe, this one's got some promise, I think. It's got some nice thick gauge. It's looking good. I like the biometrics it's got going on. It's got digital code, which means you can have at least more than 1,000 permutations like the other one did. So we'll see how this goes. Packaging was subpar. I don't think that there was anything special about the packaging, but the safe itself looks solid. I like it. I like the way it's looking.
3:23 This is made in China. One of my favorite things about this one, particularly, are just these nice steel locks. I like that. This one's kind of cool because it actually talks to you. That's kind of cool. It's kind of interesting. It kind of walks you through verbally how to set it up. It's got a little screen on it that shows little step by steps. It's a nice little touch. I think maybe it's a little overkill, but it's fine.
4:20 This one does come with some egg crate foam inside, which is kind of the foam that will allow it to adjust to different items easier than just a flat foam. The flat foam was in the [...] one, which is to be expected for how cheap it was, but the egg crate foam is a little bit nicer. It's not quite pick foam. Pick foam is more or less the gold standard, but egg crate foam is a good second tier option.
4:55 Looks like Lance is working on something over here. We're about four and a half minutes in so far, doing all right. That's five minutes for Lance. Is that it? You got your new code in there? Let's see it. Let's open it up with your new code. Might have to hit the enter button. Try your code again and then hit enter. There you go. All right. Five minutes and 30 seconds. A little bit of help from the coach, but five minutes, 30 seconds. Lance wins this round. He got it set up. He's attached to the chair, and we're going to see how long it takes Austin to finish his setup.
6:01 You can throw in the towel if you want. Technically Lance had it set up at five minutes exactly. That was our technical cutoff, five minutes. We will say on this round that the safe beat Austin at five minutes, but Lance barely beat the cutoff. And we'll get Austin's setup attached to the chair, and then we'll see how easy it is to break it free.
6:28 Give you two minutes to try to break it free on your own power. Then after that, you can move on to the next tool. I'll let you guys choose what tool you want, but the caveat: whoever gets it off with the lowest tool within five minutes wins. For example, if you go straight to the metal cutting blade, you're probably going to get it off pretty quick. But if the next person comes over and gets it off with scissors, then they win, even though it took them two minutes longer. So the goal is to get it off under five minutes with the lowest tool possible. And three, two, one. Let's go. You got to use your own body weight for at least 30 seconds.
7:34 Oh, Lance got his free. Keep going. See how long it takes you. How long was that? That was short. That was less than a minute. Oh, absolutely amazing. Okay, that surprised me. I thought that this one was going to do a lot better, because this one was secured through the wall. It wasn't through the lid, which I would have thought would be more of a weak point, maybe. But the weak point here, actually, it looks like it wasn't the safe itself. It was the wire. So the cable itself came free. On the last one, the safe broke, the safe deformed. On this one, the cable deformed.
8:29 Potentially an easy fix for this manufacturer. If they can get a better attachment system on the cable, maybe a solution for them is digging out a way to loop that cable inside there. I don't know. I don't like cables at all. That's why I've never trusted them, and I designed my safe to not have cables. We will do some destructive testing of this later, but in my opinion, it doesn't really matter, because as soon as somebody can get that free and take it home, your stuff's gone anyway, right? Like, whether or not they can get into it later, your stuff's gone. Simple as that. Their priority, they broke in your window, they got in your car, they ripped on that thing for 45 seconds and it's gone.
9:07 This is a fit test with our Billconch. If you wanted to do a phone, obviously you're easily fitting a phone in there. A lot of space to play around. Battery, that's a good size for your DSLR camera or similar, right? Like, you could maybe slam... nope. Not going to fit any which way. You probably don't want it to go, though. Maybe if you took out the phone, I don't know. Laptop, no good. We've got the P365 SIG Sauer. It's not loaded. That will fit in there easily. It would definitely rattle around. It's not going to be snug against the lid. The foam isn't tall enough. Then we've got the Maxim 9. This is like full-size 9mm. It's also got the suppressor on it, so it's pretty big. That will fit the Maxim 9 easily. So that's a nice size safe right there that will fit, I would say, probably any handgun that's probably going to work there. Let's see if we can fit our M4 .22. Alrighty. This is our M4, it's full of .22. And that's not going to fit. It's not going to fit in there. As far as size goes, I would say that's pretty good.
10:29 So tell me your frustration, Austin. So it says to start out, it's going to ask for an admin password, and the instructions say that you just need to enter a 6-digit password. If I enter a 6-digit password, it tells me that that's the wrong password. What happens if you hit the erase button? I tried doing the erase button, didn't do anything. I tried holding the erase button, didn't do anything. You're able to get the safe open with the key, but still weren't able to reset that.
11:09 [inaudible] surprised the cable gave way. But I wanted to see if I could do it without my feet. I did it. I was pretty surprised how heavy the safe is and that small cable. It kept giving me the momentum to break it off. It helped me. So the weight of the safe was actually the thing that helped you remove it from the car. That's a pretty thin gauge cable too. The Amazon one's substantially thicker. So the [...] safe, it's got to be twice the diameter, right? I mean, pulled back to the sheath, the Amazon one, the metal and the plastic are both thicker. Good job, Amazon Basics, on your cable. Bad job, cable here on the Billconch.
11:56 It's one thing that the safe is difficult to get into, because that's obviously important. But if somebody can just steal the safe itself, then it doesn't really matter how hard the safe is to break into, because they can take it home, they can take it to wherever they've got. And if they have a day or two days or five days or a year to get it open, you still don't have your stuff and they still have it. [...] Let's move on to the next safe.
The safes that replace a cable
- Boosted Safe Basic: 16-gauge steel. Code and key, no batteries.
- Boosted Safe Elite: 16-gauge steel. Opens with fingerprint, keypad or key.
- Shop car safes: All six safes in one place.
- Will it fit my car: US passenger vehicles from model year 2003 have the anchors. Check yours.
- Compare the models: Every model side by side.
- Car safe rip-out test video: Seven safes, one mock seat, the full film.
- Amazon Basics safe test video: The longer cut of the Amazon Basics round.
- Vaultek ViSN test video: The longer cut of the Vaultek round.
