Viking Security Safe VS-35BM Biometric Fingerprint Safe

After opening the door with the key, installing Duracells & pushing the green button my wife and I programmed both our index and middle fingers 3 times. Where I'm lost with this thing is : How - do you TURN OFF the fingerprint input mode ???? Every time we hit the bar above the optic reader, it's ready for a new print. Should a thief somehow figure this out....what's the point of all this ? Goofy as well, is - that once it's been opened - you have to tap the bar and read your finger whereupon it cycles through the open mode and then you can go ahead and close the door and hit the bar to lock. If there's something I'm missing here.... can someone please tell me ?? Update 5/28/13. While we did have a "false start" with this unit, I can say that this company has great support !! When they saw this they contacted us and offered a new reader mechanism. I had to be across the nation the day after it arrived and let them know this. I got back here a week ago, installed it yesterday and the unit works exactly as stated now. Siana was great about keeping in contact and giving us latitude regarding the time frame. I sent back the old unit today and will have my wife enter her fingerprint data before the week's out. Thanks Biometric Store !!

I eagerly programmed the safe after receiving it. I programmed both index fingers a dozens times, sometimes at angles, and a thumb about 3 times. It loved my fingerprints (typical guy hands) and I was thrilled. Then my wife started programming her fingers. It didn't even like to program them. She has slender fingers and smooth skin (but her fingerprints are NOT worn off). After a much longer effort to program for her, she tried unlocking the safe.More times than not, it failed to read. We tried programming and opening again and again. She tried clean hands, dirty hands, dry hands, damp hands. She is not even 40, does not have greasy, wet or overly dry hands. We tried a clean sensor, smudged sensor, fingers, thumbs - but no toes.The beeping noise and slow open that are acceptable if you can reach in and grab your loaded handgun are suddenly a major problem if you have to repeatedly try to open the safe 5, 6 or 7 times.If I lived alone, this safe would stay, but my wife having fast access to the gun is even more important than me. Unfortunately, the safe is going back. So..if the safe likes you, I think you will find it worth 4 stars...but make sure it works for all users before you decide to keep it.Update: when I figured out how much it would cost to ship this hoss back I decided to give it one more go. After resetting the safe (again) and leaving the batteries out for a day (as suggested by support ) we tried reprogramming it This time, with fully clear memory, we had my wife program it first. It was a much different experience with 18/20 reads right the first time. So...we're keeping it with a nagging uncertainty. Until we feel completely comfortable with it, the 12 gauge may stay close too.Why on earth did they make this thing beep and chirp loudly? If it takes 2 times to open it, anyone in the house certainly knows where you are. Still, a good value and all we can put toward a biometric safe.

I have owned my viking safe now for 8 months and haven't had any major problems with it. Real easy to set up, just follow instructions that come with your unit. I was able to input multiple finger prints from both mine and my wife hands(at least 10 each)into the memory of the safe. Make sure that you do input multiple reading even for each individual finger, that way if your in a hurry to get into the safe your fingerprints has been scanned into the memory in multiple positions. I use the safe to store my 40 cal and 200rounds of ammo along with a small mag light and their is still room to spare inside if i needed to put more in the safe. The only problem i have had with the safe and the reason i gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is that sometimes when you go to shut the door the cover for the battery housing falls off and 1 or 2 of the batteries fall out. Not a huge deal but, still it happens. Over all a great safe and not to mention it is nice to know that the gun is safely stored from my 2 kids but, ready if i need to get to it for home protection.

I want to start by saying this safe is not a good safe for the price but that this is a really good safe for a low price, which is very different than good for the price. It is solid and does look like it is well built. It easily passes the build test. I am not saying this is fort Knox far from it; this is good quality home safe.That said; let me focus on the biometric reader because that is just as important as the material build of the safe. I have been using it for about 4 weeks daily and have not had one failure yet. It was super easy to program. You simply press the green button and then place the finger of your choice on the LIGHTED reader and wait for the "ok". That is it. It literally took me about a minute to program in about 15 fingerprints (same finger different positions). Since I did them all in the first programming I cannot say how well it would work if I had only used one finger print to program But honestly you get 100 prints to program and It is super fast to do. I cannot imagine anyone using them all up.Another neat feature is it has a motorized opening which is weird because when I read about it I thought it was the most useless feature possible. I thought to myself "you need a motor to open a knob for you; this explains why there are so many fat people in America". But now, I absolutely love this feature but I am not sure why. Maybe it is because of all the hassle you go throughout the day the little opening up of the lock makes me feel a sense of ease or maybe because it adds to the futuristic feel of the safe. I will have to ask my therapist. Anyway, it is a cool feature and you will like it.If you need a fingerprint opening safe and you want a really good price for a quality safe then you cannot go wrong with this safe. This safe probably has the best quality to price ratio out there.