First-ever ‘smart gun’ with fingerprint and facial recognition unlocking system hits the market

I wonder how Judge Dredd got his to work with gloves on. I also will see how the facial recognition will work in a dark bedroom at night from the nightstand.
 
kwguy said:
I wonder how Judge Dredd got his to work with gloves on. I also will see how the facial recognition will work in a dark bedroom at night from the nightstand.
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The camera is an infrared (thermal) camera so it works in 100% darkness.
 
mcb said:
The camera is an infrared (thermal) camera so it works in 100% darkness.
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So I can grab the gun, point the camera at the face of the person sleeping (or awake), and the gun will then work, correct? It works by finger print or seeing the "owner's" face. After which it's green lighted until the person holding the gun hand is taken off the grip sensors. Defeats the purpose. All I have to do as an unauthorized person holding the gun in my hand is to flash the "baseplate" aka camera at the owner's face, and I'm good to go from there granted I don't take my hand off of the grip.

I don't see an issue with this for a completely narrow use as a home defense gun for people who can't otherwise secure their firearms or are to incompetent and lazy to do so, but any other use is impractical and dangerous. The other issue is that despite what the company claims the purpose and role of this gun is, half the country, state and federal legislators, and gun control groups want this legislated into law and forced on everyone. These people will have SCOTUS and Congress in the near future.

It just seems like a solution that solves one problem while simultaneously creating dozens more.
 
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mcb said:
The camera is an infrared (thermal) camera so it works in 100% darkness.
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I’m open to being corrected, but I highly doubt they are using thermal facial recognition. I’d guess it’s short wave infrared similar to what an iPhone uses. Unfortunately most people know how flawed that can be. It also is dependent on the infrared emitter having uninterrupted line of site to the features that are used for identification.
 
ColoradoMinuteMan said:
I’m open to being corrected, but I highly doubt they are using thermal facial recognition. I’d guess it’s short wave infrared similar to what an iPhone uses. Unfortunately most people know how flawed that can be. It also is dependent on the infrared emitter having uninterrupted line of site to the features that are used for identification.
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In the video Ian says its a near IR camera. That will still work better than a visible light camera in low light and you have the advantage of the face being in a very predicable place for illumination and recognition.

At this point I have had my say and will bow out of the thread. You luddites can feel free to continue to dog pile on the technology all you like. My signature really is fitting for this thread, I suspect both ways.
 
I’m sure, at some point, just like other things we use in our lives, the reliability of the electronic and mechanical components of a “smart gun” will achieve a very high level of reliability. We barely even think of our key fobs anymore, or optics, as mentioned before. With that being said, for ultimate reliability in an optic, in a worst case scenario, I prefer a lighted etched reticle / dot / what have you, to a non etched optic (one reason why I still love acogs), and key fobs will start to let you down when the batteries start to go out on what is otherwise an extremely robust little piece of tech.

A “smart gun” will always be more “diva” than a normal gun, simply because it’s more complicated. It’ll have to be monitored more often, taken care of, etc. like many do with ted dots: change the batteries on their birthday. Me? I always forget to do that. But, and this is the real crux, no?:

The parameters and techniques of recognition in the many modes, and all the myriad ways that it may be desired, will be extremely difficult to achieve. Fingerprint and facial recognition is a cute beginning, but it’s nowhere close to where it needs to be, except for that very niche application that’s been discussed. And even in that role, for my taste, it isn’t good enough.

Maybe combine all that with pheromone detection?

Time will tell.

When certain pieces of tech come into their own, even “Luddites” begin to use it. This has
always been the case. Just because someone doesn’t like sucky, new, “beta” tech doesn’t make them a Luddite. It just needs to be proven. And needs to actually have a purpose, beyond enabling antis to make more onerous laws. I can see this going the way of EV’s. Ridiculous. gov mandates and interference and bullying.
 
Mosin77 said:
Plenty of people who have no knowledge of firearms think it sounds great.
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Oh yes yes of course! The upcoming press conference, ''this tech is THE solution to the gun problem'', golf clap, then this...

FORCED compliance. Think gas stove, fridge, and window A/C, all current debacles.

''But it doesn't work'' translates into, ''we will get it working, takes another $75bil and the opposing party is holding it up.'' Meanwhile go see Helen.

MAN!! PERfect, unarm the little guy, make the new EV,er, excuse me, gun sooo expensive no one can use it, sorry for the ppl needing the safety items due to living in a bad area. Removes the ammo debate, NFA debate, magazine ban debate, etc.

Sucker(s) born every minute, might as well take your chances if & when that Nigerian prince calls back....
 
Okay, we’re all discussing pro’s and con’s about the electronic features of this gun, but what about the rest of it?

Does the company manufacturing this item actually have any background in firearms technology? Will this actually be a decent gun, not just an electronic toy?

Will it be well made? Will it be reliable, accurate, etc?

Lots of unanswered questions…
 
Thats the spirit! If they don’t agree with you, they must be closed minded. As someone who has literally spent a career participating in the development of new technology and it’s application to an old school industry, I completely understand what it’s like to be confronted by these sorts of headwinds. When breaking barriers it’s first important to understand who your customer is, what is important to them, why they purchase the products that they do and be able to continually demonstrate that the new technology provides value to the customer. This technology is not solving a problem that most gun owners are looking to solve and potentially introduces new problems in key areas that actually are very important to most gun owners. Most gun owners who are concerned with unauthorized possession of their firearms already have solutions in place that don’t introduce the complexities and add risk to the reliability of their firearm. This gun technology mostly solves problems that non-gun owners and anti-gun owners want to solve. This product may be appealing to those audiences and perhaps opens up a small niche market but until this product finds a way to appeal to the primary gun market or leverage the legal l/regulatory system to force people into buying them (e.g. DEF systems in diesel trucks), they won’t have great success.

mcb said:
In the video Ian says its a near IR camera. That will still work better than a visible light camera in low light and you have the advantage of the face being in a very predicable place for illumination and recognition.

At this point I have had my say and will bow out of the thread. You luddites can feel free to continue to dog pile on the technology all you like. My signature really is fitting for this thread, I suspect both ways.
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When technology allows me to shoot 44 magnum effectiveness with the recoil of 22 magnum, I’ll embrace it. When technology allows me to hold 68 rounds with the weight of 17, I’ll embrace it. Better accuracy, I’ll take it. Less weight, better materials, more reliability, etc, I’ll take it.

But if big brother and puppet politicians get more control of new gun technology, we lose.
 
ColoradoMinuteMan said:
Thats the spirit! If they don’t agree with you, they must be closed minded. As someone who has literally spent a career participating in the development of new technology and it’s application to an old school industry, I completely understand what it’s like to be confronted by these sorts of headwinds. When breaking barriers it’s first important to understand who your customer is, what is important to them, why they purchase the products that they do and be able to continually demonstrate that the new technology provides value to the customer. This technology is not solving a problem that most gun owners are looking to solve and potentially introduces new problems in key areas that actually are very important to most gun owners. Most gun owners who are concerned with unauthorized possession of their firearms already have solutions in place that don’t introduce the complexities and add risk to the complexity and reliability of their firearm. This gun technology mostly solves problems that non-gun owners and anti-gun owners want to solve, This product may be appealing to those audiences and perhaps opens up a small niche market but until this product finds a way to appeal to the primary gun market or leverage the legal l/regulatory system to force people into buying them (e.g. DEF systems in diesel trucks), they won’t have great success.
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Well stated, logical, "commen sense" argument. That's it in a nutshell. This solves an issue people who know nothing about guns thus they're uncomfortable AND people who are antigun want to solve. What those of us who aren't naive and who have been around for a while realize that even if these were mandated (like Democrats and antigun organizations are calling for) the buck isn't going to stop there. There will be more and more restrictions still to come to solve any "gun violence" that will still happen. Then they're going to want to do away with the 330+ million guns that are already on the street because according to them smart guns will be ineffective with the dumb guns still in the hands of citizens. It's all a slippery slope.

Here's a quote from the company's founder who is in bed with the antigun community:

Biofire founder Kai Kloepfer said he was inspired to develop the weapon by the Aurora, Colo., theater mass shooting in 2012.

“At the time it was the worst mass shooting in history and it happened right down the road here from where I grew up,” he told Bloomberg. “That was one of my first encounters with (gun violence). And it really got me to think, ‘How can I do something about this?’”
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Note that James Holmes purchased his firearms legally, so I'm not sure how a smart gun would have stopped that or other mass shootings.
 
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JCSC said:
Wonder how an EMP would affect one of these.
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EMP will kill anything electronic where the conductors are within the distance the magnetic flux can span (there's a cube root function for both intensity and distance).

Things with "windings" are especially vulnerable.

That's the nature of EMP and things electronic.

Your RDS or laser or WML will be killed just as dead, if in sufficient range of a large enough EMP. Ditto the electronic locks on your security boxes or doors.
 
I only have manual gun storage, I don't trust electronic ones. In WWIII, some ignored Chinese balloon will float a giant EMP bomb over us and that's it! BTW, we have no defenses against cruise missiles against our infrastructure. So, if your gun goes out - we've worse problems.
 
It could be an interesting idea, except my state (Maryland) passed a law 20-25 years ago that as soon as "smart guns" were commercially available, they would be the only guns available for sale in MD. So, here's me hoping their funding falls through or the company quickly goes out of business before the gun can be said to be truly available. Unless MD removed the law from the books (and the Maryland legislature likes adding not removing gun laws), this is a huge potential problem.
 
chaim said:
It could be an interesting idea, except my state (Maryland) passed a law 20-25 years ago that as soon as "smart guns" were commercially available, they would be the only guns available for sale in MD. So, here's me hoping their funding falls through or the company quickly goes out of business before the gun can be said to be truly available. Unless MD removed the law from the books (and the Maryland legislature likes adding not removing gun laws), this is a huge potential problem.
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According to Everytown, the bill that required all guns to be smart guns was amended in 2019.

Now the law is:
Within 60 days of the first personalized handgun being included on the roster, New Jersey licensed firearm retail dealers must “make available for purchase at least one personalized handgun approved by the commission and listed on the roster as eligible for sale.” They must also post copies of the personalized handgun roster and a sign disclosing unique features of personalized handguns. Licensed firearm retailers’ personalized handgun inventory and records are subject to inspection by the state police at least once every two years, and dealers who violate the personalized handgun requirement are subject to penalties.
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Styx said:
According to Everytown, the bill that required all guns to be smart guns was amended in 2019.

Now the law is:
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I’d include one in my inventory with a price of $3,000… should comply with the law and keep overhead to a minimum….
 
Styx said:
According to Everytown, the bill that required all guns to be smart guns was amended in 2019.

Now the law is:
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I dug deeper.

It seems that we don't currently have a law that would mandate "smart guns" automatically, we do have a current law requiring the Handgun Board to provide a report to the Maryland General Assembly annually about smart guns so that once they are available they can pass a law requiring them.


Given that our original law was modeled after NJ (if I remember correctly, which after 20 years I may not), hopefully any new law will be as well if their current law only requires FFLs to make them available once they exist and not mandate that only "smart guns" be made available. The law would still suck, the article that started this thread said it would have a $1500 MSRP or so, that's a lot of money for businesses that operate on tight margins to have tied up in something they likely will never be able to actually sell. However, it would be a lot better than banning everything else.
 
It is a minor inconvenience when my phone doesn't unlock with my thumb print, the way I have it setup. Might take me an extra 10-15 seconds to unlock. 10-15 extra seconds to unlock a firearm would mean death. No thanks. The technology will never get to the point where I will trust it. I will take stupid guns anytime.

Tinfoil hat time: Any smart tech can be hacked into and disabled, given enough time or resources. There is no law stopping government from hacking into your smart gun and making you disarmed. Small local government locked out 22,000 smart thermostats in Colorado because "climate change." I do not trust the federal government to respect firearm rights when they don't even respect the right to warmth, that you are already paying for...

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/5/2...customers-smart-thermostats-colorado-heatwave
 
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