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Rating: - Not as Expected...
I was initially excited about getting this safe for home defense purposes. I wanted a gun safe that was readily accessible that used biometrics to access the safe. Although the scanner itself is pretty good (it looks very similar to those used on the Thinkpads), the underlying software/microcode that interprets the scanned fingerprints left much to be desired. Getting all prints properly scanned in took more time than I expected. Moreover, when trying to access the safe, it would take typically between 3-5 scans to get the safe to open. The safe employs some kind of servo/capacitor actuated system to pop open the doors. What I did not expect was they were relatively loud and if you are facing a home defense situation at night, plan accordingly -- your position has just been compromised. Still, I felt the safe was going to work for me until two weeks ago, I had to access the safe. It was then I discovered that the safe would not open. It recognized my fingerprint, and it stated the typical LCD message indicating the unit was "charging" to get to a state to open the doors, but the fingerprint LEDs kept flashing yellow and the doors never opened.

I contacted the Sequiam tech support and discovered that the company - SEQUIAM - had gone Chapter 11 and were out of business. Another company, BioMETRX bought all liquidated assets from SEQUIAM, including this safe in its current configuration (Biovault 2.0). I was told by the BioMETRX tech support that their company policy was not to honor any warranties on Sequiam sold Biovaults. In my case, my safe was 3 months out of warranty. What was shocking was that somebody who purchased this safe in January or February of 2008, could have a safe less than 6 months into a one year warranty and if it failed, there was no recourse. BioMETRX has no **legal** responsibility to assume the warranty of Sequiam sold safes, notwithstanding the fact that this safe has not been modified at all since BioMETRX bought Sequiam assets, the right thing to do , particularly for security products, would have been to honor Sequiam warranties.

The BioMETRX tech support representative did indicated that the failure I experienced was a circuit board problem, for which there was no known solution. I will leave it to the reader how that might play out if an intruder enters your house and what your options might be if you get a similar circuit board failure.

There is good news however, you can access the safe. I went online to various web forums and discovered that with a standard claw hammer and approximately 30 seconds worth of effort, you can get back into the safe:

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I had high hopes for this safe and the possibility does exist that with future improvements, it could be a good safe.