we all have one A place in our homes to hide things that need to be kept out of reach of children. At CES in Las Vegas, one company thinks there’s a more stylish way to tackle that particular problem. Trova releases his third product, Trova Home. It’s essentially a biometrically locked stylish shoe box for little humans who don’t want to wear gloves.
The device has a stylish design, comes in several colors and can be unlocked using NFC or Bluetooth. The app itself can be protected using the biometric lock built into current generation smartphones. Calling the device “safe” is probably a bit generous. Thin metal and relatively fragile metal latches can probably be circumvented by throwing the box against the wall or banging it with a hammer. If a level of protection is required, an existing wall, floor or shelf mounted secure solution will provide sufficient coverage.
“About 60% of our customers are parents, and they seem to really understand the use cases for our products. Privacy is very important when you’re running around, and ultimately what we do is provide people with privacy and peace of mind for items they don’t want to be accidentally or intentionally discovered. Our use cases are usually split evenly between traditional use cases for jewelry and valuables, and more illegal use cases for things you don’t want children to accidentally discover.Adult bedroom toys, entertainment Marijuana (if legal), your prescription drug may be dangerous to children.”
Trova Home in sandstone and charcoal finish pictured. Image credit: Haje Kamps / TechCrunch
Despite the founders’ insistence that Trova is only for legal substances, it’s probably possible to hide illegal drugs in Trova if you have a few pills, tabs, or powders from your college days.
Another use case is technical timeouts. Lock the phones of everyone in your family and set a timer for them to unlock again. The nice thing about this use case is that the device has several of her USB-C sockets. So you can charge your phone while enjoying dinner or settling in for a game night.
“Parents kept telling us they wanted to use it for technical timeouts. I think,” says Loeppert. “And we’re introducing that as a feature in our new app. You can set a timer to open it after an hour, two hours, three hours, or whenever you want.”
Trova Home can warn users if the temperature or humidity has moved outside the specified ranges, and if someone is trying to tamper with the device. Alerts can be sent every time the device is opened, moved out of range, or when the device loses Wi-Fi due to some other Wi-Fi failure.
The new devices are now available in sandstone and charcoal finishes, can be opened by up to five authorized users per device, and measure 14.5×6.2×3 inches (37x19x10cm). It is priced at US$549 and will ship soon.
