Installing a wall safe is easy

We’ve covered quite a few security topics on these pages, both digital and physical. Today’s post falls firmly in the latter camp: it’s easy and inexpensive to install a biometric wall safe.

Basically, you simply use a jab saw to cut out a hole in the drywall of the right side, clearing out the insulation if it’s an outside wall:

The safe is mounted with four bolts on the inside to the studs (so that the safe can’t be removed when it’s locked):

And when it’s all done and programmed with your fingerprints, you’ve got a nice clean wall safe that can be hidden almost anywhere (although, with this particular safe, the fingerprint scanner sticks out pretty far, so it wouldn’t fit behind a painting, for example).

I assume this is true of most safes with electric locking mechanisms, but before I ordered it the thought crossed my mind: what happens if the batteries die and the fingerprint reader stops working? The answer is that the safe comes with a battery pack that you put a few AA batteries in, and plug it in under the fingerprint reader. This allows you to provide external power long enough to replace the batteries on the inside.