Post
Topic
Board Hardware wallets
Merits 2 from 1 user
Re: New HW wallet announced: COLDCARD Q1
by
n0nce
on 21/02/2023, 23:27:44 UTC
⭐ Merited by Pmalek (2)
One interesting thing we noticed is that it's about 4x6 inches, almost an inch thick (you can do the estimation yourself knowing the screen is 3.2 inches diagonal). I think many users will be surprised by the sheer size of the device. It's certainly not pocketable.
Probably still pocketable from the size, only the thickness may get annoying. I'm mostly worried about the Alkaline batteries. From my research into the topic, they will either need a pretty sophisticated power circuit and (super?)capacitors to absorb power spikes and such, to prevent killing the battery charge in a few minutes of power-on time. Or drastically reduce power usage e.g. by killing backlight, having (AS)ICs to accelerate certain things at minimal power usage.

Additionally, I think I found the QR scanner part they are using. This means the QR scanner is essentially a standalone black box computer running proprietary code. It also means that there will be no viewfinder on the Q1 screen: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Embedded-1D-2D-Image-Barcode-Scanner_62478427468.html?spm=a2700.galleryofferlist.normal_offer.d_title.2e971000ZaPAEz&s=p

using an specialized QR scanner module at the top of the unit. It connects to the Coldcard internally using a simple 2-wire serial port, so there is less danger of scanned data doing more than it seems.
Yes, this reads really oddly. How is the number of wires a security feature? Cheesy If anything, I'd want my QR code scanner to be in - open-source - software and not on some off-the-shelf 'external module'...