Viking Security SafeVS-20BLX Heavy Duty Mini Biometric Fingerprint

I have had this safe for quite some time now. It is a great safe. Convenient to use. Compact size. Heavy enough to make it a chore to carry even at it’s size(a plus because it is not the kind of item that you want moving around) it is mountable and able to be secured in place. It is beautiful looking if you see beauty in metal. Functions as perfectly as can be expected. It is important to keep batteries fresh to avoid having to use the backup keys. It does use very little battery power and the batteries have lasted much longer than I expected. Because I have left the batteries in too long, I am having to contact customer service. They are also very good. Great response time. A great product from a great company.Good for personal use or professional use where multiple users can be added.

Great little safe.....I just love these safes.... and after looking around at numerous different brands, I always came back to Viking's safes as being the best value for the money... and also because of the quality of their build. Having 3 options to open them is a great feature. And because there is a key option, you won't ever get locked out of it, if the electronics ever fail. Being 64, I figured the fingerprint reader probably wouldn't work for me... but happily it did! I used my middle finger because my thumbs and index fingers always get cut, nicked, etc. working around the house. Sadly, it didn't work for my girlfriend, but it worked both for me, and my son.The keys are 4-sided, and very robust... not the kind of lock just anyone could pick, maybe only a locksmith could do it. Keypad works great... and a very nice feature is the LED light inside, which comes on when the door opens.They've generously supplied some hardware to anchor the safe to the floor or wall, but the idea didn't really appeal to me. You would either have to bolt it to the floor (which is not convenient) or to a wall stud which would not work very well. The small size would allow only 1 fastening point, since studs are 16" apart. My idea was to use some 3/16" steel aircraft cable, with a small loop on one end of the cable, feed the cable through the inside back hole, until the loop stops it. I made the cable 12' long. Then I drilled a 1/4" hole through my bedroom floor, behind the middle of my low dresser, through the carpet molding at the baseboard. That way, you can still take the molding off when you get new carpeting and locate the safe to anywhere on the dresser. I fed the cable into the basement, and secured the end of the cable (near the hole), in a circular fashion, using common cable/wire staples to the 2x10's holding the floor up, after bending the cable in a circle, and nailing the staples over the cable in all the curves. No thief is going to spend that much time trying to either cut the 3/16" cable, or pull out 8, 10, or 15 wire staples (your choice) on the basement ceiling.I happen to have a big, cable-crimping tool myself, and had to decide which sized wire would work for this securing problem. The next size down was 1/8" cable, and there was no doubt in my mind as to which cable was the right choice. The 3/16" cable looks massive next to the 1/8" cable (as shown in the pictures) even though it's only 50% larger. I have some good cable cutting nippers that cut the small stuff in a snap, whereas they couldn't cut the 3/16" stuff..... even my 18" long bolt cutters couldn't cut the bigger cable. I had to use a hammer and cold chisel, to actually cut the stuff.... Because of the stiffness of the wire, I found that the loop may turn (inside the safe) and cause the shelf to lift. It's not a big deal to just adjust the cable a bit to cure that, but I will make my girlfriend's safe just a bit different.... rather than making a loop, I made hers with a simple cable stop. These cannot be pulled off by any normal human, but for a bit more "extra" security I put 2 on, instead of one.These safes are well worth the money, and their representative Monica was very gracious... she answered all the questions I asked, and even had the boxes opened and quality checked, per my request, before shipment to me. Overall I am very satisfied with my purchase. I actually bought 3 of them... and everyone loves them.Hope you enjoyed my review.

I did a lot of research to try to get the best safe of this size at a reasonable price. Since it seems a lot of reviewers are compensated these days I will say definitively that I did NOT receive a discount or a free product for my review. I ordered it at the list price just like anyone else to store some "machined steel parts" that I'd prefer my kids didn't access without supervision.1) This safe has a motorized actuator to retract the deadbolts rather than a knob that the user must twist. This obviously reduces the number of steps to open but more importantly limits vulnerability to "safe bumping" (look it up on YouTube) which many similar safes are vulnerable to. Since the person trying to bump can't load up the knob while bumping it that makes it impossible to bump, at least in the "traditional" manner. It's fast too. Should the mechanism fail the key can be used to retract the deadbolts manually.2) The key mechanism seems very secure. It's a bit hard to get in (It only goes in one way even though it looks symmetrical) and you have to remove a plate to access the key hole but it's really just for access in a dead battery condition. It seems like it would be very difficult to defeat.3) The reset button is well protected on the interior. Other similar safes have had vulnerabilities where a small hole could be popped in the plastic keypad then a wire could be used to fish around and press the interior reset button, restoring the default codes. This one would require drilling through metal to do this.It's not an impenetrable fortress obviously, but it's a very good strong box with quick auto-pilot access.The fingerprint reader is quite good. Not up there with TouchID on an iOS device but close. At first I only enrolled each finger once. This worked well but maybe 5-10% of the time I'd get "err" on a registered finger. I opted to go back and enroll a single finger on each hand 5x each. It's near 100% reliable now. On the screen sometimes it will recognize the same finger as one of the other ID#s that it was enrolled as rather than erroring out.Only one minor gripe about the beeper/documentation. It's not loud but it's a bit loud for certain applications. I wanted to turn it off so I consulted the documentation. It stated to press "0 & (*)" which I attempted, numerous times. To me (and I imagine most) the "&" indicates that both buttons should be pressed together so I didn't really even think about it. I spent 5 minutes or so doing different combinations. Press both briefly and simultaneously, press and hold 0, then press *, vise versa, etc. As it turns out you press 0 THEN * and it works fine.

I think the safe is secure, but it's a little difficult to operate, and I'm disappointed with the smaller than expected size. I was wanting to use it to replace two safe deposit boxes, and it could only replace one. It's very easy to hit the same number on the keypad twice by accident, and after three attempts to key in the correct number, the safe locks you out for 10 minutes. The keys are also placed above their corresponding numbers, and are small and black on a black background (although what they represent is printed in white), so it's easy to hit a key above or below the desired row. I also had a very difficult time installing the LED interior lights, and thought I was going to have to forgo that step, but I finally got the lightbox lid to come off. Finally, the entire safe is small and light enough that it can just be carried away by a thief, although he or she might have a hard time opening it, and the safe can be bolted down, although I don't think I'll do that.