© 2024 New Atlas
Good Thinking

Vault Wallet offers a new home for your credit cards

By Dave Parrack
October 07, 2013
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
View 6 Images
The Vault Wallet offers a stainless steel home for your credit cards
The Vault Wallet is a stainless steel RFID-blocking
The Vault Wallet features a seamless elastic band designed to store other cards and cash
The Vault Slim is only 3.9mm thick, making it thinner than a drawing pin
The Vault Wallet features a seamless elastic band designed to store other cards and cash
The Vault Wallet offers a stainless steel home for your credit cards
The Vault Wallet comes in two sizes: the Slim and the One, for one and two credit cards respectively
View gallery - 6 images

Leather or nylon wallets are so passe, at least according to Jeremiah Skow, creator of the Vault Wallet, a solid credit card sleeve made from stainless steel. The steel gives the Vault Wallet several advantages over the competition. It's strong, thin, able to block RFID sniffing, and potentially long-lasting.

The idea behind the Vault Wallet is simple. As we inch ever closer to being a cashless society, the design of the wallet needs to evolve to better serve our needs. So, the Vault Wallet removes all but some simple slots for a credit card or two.

Made from 15 individually laser-cut stainless steel parts layered and riveted together, the Vault Wallet offers a slim but strong home for your credit cards. The use of stainless steel means the Vault Wallet blocks RFID transmissions, which could be a potential target for hackers. This could also prevent your RFID-capable card from interfering with other transactions, such as the swiping of travel cards.

The one feature of the Vault Wallet that doesn't fit in to its minimalist edict is the auto-eject mechanism, which means you never have to take your credit card fully out of its protective sleeve. Instead, you press the button to push your card out halfway, and when you've finished with it you simply push it back in.

The Vault Wallet is designed for those people who only use one or two credit or debit cards and don't carry much (if any) cash. However, the optional elastic band that stretches around one side of the wallet gives the option of carrying other cards or paper money.

The Vault Slim features one card slot, weighs 130 grams, and is 3.9 mm thick. The Vault One features two card slots, weighs 170 grams, and is 5.9 mm thick. The Vault Wallets are currently being funded through a Kickstarter campaign, with the Slim costing $29 and the One costing $39. A video explaining the concept can be seen below.

Sources: Kickstarter, Vault Wallets

View gallery - 6 images

Tags

Good ThinkingWalletsRFIDStainless SteelCredit CardsKickstarterMinimalist
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
Dave Parrack
Dave is a technology journalist with a ravenous appetite for gadgets, gizmos, and gubbins. He's based in the UK, and from his center of operations writes about all facets of modern and future technology. He has learned more in his five years writing for the Web than he did in 11 years at school, and with none of the boring subjects thrown in to the mix.
13 comments
Russell Willmoth
Might be useful in a third world country which doesn't have chip and pin, but who the hell "swipes" a credit card in a first world country? Also whats the point of a device that only holds one card and the rest of them stuck on the side with and elastic band?
Tommo
Useless!
Last time I had to swipe my card was at least three years ago - chip and pin has rendered this item obsolete.
professore
Right, most sales staff these days don't even know what to do with a "swipe" card. I think it is more like 10 years since I used one. The EEC is already trying to settle on a successor to the chip-n-pin.
CliffG
Any place that accepts credit will need to see the signature on the back of the card or see your license for proof of identity. All this device does is increase the size of one card 10 fold.
f8lee
Apparently you folks never use Redbox - swiping is mandatory there. But that said, I agree about the issue of the pointlessness of a 2 card holder (in protected mode, anyway). I also wonder how comfortable this would be in a front pocket (where one carries one's wallet to better avoid being the victim of pickpockets.
MG127
beside being useless, wouldn't it be a little bit cold when you put it in your pocket ?
mvp
Folks in Europe/Canada need to understand that the U.S. is far behind in chip and pin technology. This article explains it all:
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-16/lifestyle/39307061_1_chip-and-pin-chip-card-new-cards
Heck, I loaded up all the info from my credit/debit cards into into my Samsung Galaxy S3 Wallet App only to find that just a handful of stores even have the NFC technology.
In the States, it remains that most businesses still rely on swiping our magnetic strips. No wonder we have so many scammers running rampant.
Rick Beacham
Might be OK, if you only used 1 card
Stephen N Russell
Need more pockets or sleeves for ID etc to be a working wallet, cant see just for credit & debit cards. Must expand on this alone.
The Skud
The main fault that sticks out to me is that I've yet to see a "swipe" version of the unbiquitous ATM! I wonder just how many (leaving out the rich, who would just tell their valet / minder to pay) will want only one or two cards during a week?
Most Viewed