Secure Your Valuables with the BARSKA AX11620 Biometric Fingerprint Mini Home Safe

Tammy P: Difficult to set it up

Canada on Jan 28, 2021

DGB: Bought this for work. The only negative I encountered is the inability to selectively remove fingerprint access--you have to erase all and start over. Other than that, this is a great safe for keys and other small items.

Canada on Mar 07, 2016

peter2772000: Works better than expected. I really didn't think it would be this reliable. No regrets and I've had it for over 3-4 yrs now!

Canada on Jan 21, 2016

Bob Graham: Seems to work fine.

Canada on Oct 16, 2015

Adam: So I've had this safe for about 3-4 months now. I can say is pretty much what I wanted. I use to have one of those cheap drawer safes from Staples. My 60 year old mother could break into those with a butter knife. It was infuriating.

Anyways in glad I actually bought this more expensive barska safe. I don't have any guns. But I do keep my wallet, keys, etc in it. So I use my safe multiple times as day. It needs to work and needs to be simple. I don't want to screw around with it if I'm using it a couple times a day.

This thing is great. The biometric works well. I scanned my fingers in a couple of different positions. It does screw up 1/15 times but usually in being lazy with my fingers.

Definitely a good mid range safe.

Canada on Jul 03, 2015

Scott E. Boyle: 11/8/2017 Update - Finally changed the batteries, but only because I was worried about the old batteries leaking due to age. The old ones (Costco "Kirkland" Brand) lasted over 3 years with 2-3 open/close cycles per day.

2/18/2016 update - still working great, and haven't changed the batteries yet. I typically cycle this safe open/closed twice a day. Fingerprint sensor has gotten faster & more reliable, probably because I'm more aware of the subtle way to hold a particular finger to open it. Still very happy with this safe.

Original Review:
I've had this safe for about 6 months now, and I would buy it again. I use it several times a day and haven't had any battery issues yet. I like that you can program several fingerprints into it and that the manual opening is hidden the way it is. I don't know if I'd consider this a fast opening safe or if I'd feel completely comfortable relying on it to open quickly in an emergency, but that could be mitigated by being careful in the initial set-up, I think. From what I understand, there are some fingerprint readers that are easy to fool and some that aren't. The ones that are speedy to open and open every time are, I...

United States on Dec 18, 2014

Phil Stracchino (Technical Thug): I bought this safe to replace a GunVault MiniVault which had suffered a series of progressive failures in its electronics, which culminated in it completely losing the ability to change the access pattern from the factory default. GunVault seemed uninterested in repairing it. The Barska Biometric is a much better choice for the job, and if you compare reviews you'll see most buyers who've tried both agree that the Barska's fingerprint reader is much more reliable than GunVault's.

The first thing that struck me when I unboxed the Barska is that while the MiniVault seems to be made from slightly heavier gauge steel, the locking bolts on the Barska are very clearly far more serious than the very small spring-loaded hook latch on the Mini_Vault, which always struck me as a weak point that would fail easily if someone found an effective way to pry the door. Second is that while the total interior volume of the Barska probably isn't that much larger than the Mini-Vault, it's much more usable due to its shape. And the third physical win is that the mounting holes for bolting the Barska down are MUCH more usable and accessible than the MiniVault's.

(It should of course go...

United States on Aug 11, 2013