What Donut tested
This is the Boosted Safe chapter of We Tried Car Products from Kickstarter, a 15-minute video by Donut, the car channel, posted Sep 18, 2023. Our part starts at 4:37. The rest of the video covers other products.
Video by Donut, on YouTube. Editorial. Shopify sponsored the video, not us. Words below are ours, not theirs.
The format is a game. The hosts watch the original Kickstarter pitch, tease it, and bet on which of two products raised more. They mock the pitch for leaning on fear, and they pick at the name. One of them still admits, "Maybe I should get a Boosted Safe." Both bet on us, and both are right.
Then they try it. The safe goes in without fuss, and they give a colleague 30 seconds to get at whatever is inside. He says up front that he will not break the car. He tugs at it, guesses at a code, and runs out of time. They count that as a pass and move on.
Treat that as what it is: a friendly gag with a timer, no tools and no broken glass. It does not tell you how the safe holds up against tools. In our own filmed test a screwdriver pried the Basic open at 2:20, and the Elite stayed shut through hand tools and hammers. Donut's try shows that a person with bare hands and no code did not walk off with it in half a minute. With enough time and tools nothing is secure. The job is to raise the time and the tool count.
The video is from 2023, so some things are out of date. The pitch's figures and its claim about any car are from that campaign, and we do not stand behind them today. The anchors come in US passenger vehicles from model year 2003, with some exceptions. The range now runs to three families, each as an Elite or a Basic.
What to watch for
- 4:38. The Kickstarter pitch and their reaction.
- 5:11. The name gets its first ribbing.
- 6:30. The bet, and the note about the name.
- 6:53. The 30-second try starts.
- 7:22. How it ends.
The Boosted Safe today
The safe they tried is an early version. Today the Boosted Safe Elite clips to the LATCH anchors (called ISOFIX outside the US) and opens by fingerprint, keypad or key. The release is inside the safe. It comes off the anchors only after it has been opened.
For a harder look at the mount, see the pull test and why it looks like a booster seat. You can also check your vehicle, compare the models, see every car safe and read the reviews.
