World’s first ‘Smart Glock’ with face recognition and fingerprint unlock will cost $1,500
Americans can now pre-order the Smart Glock, which requires face and fingerprint recognition technology to fire.
Aspiring firearms maker Biofire is selling a futuristic 9mm pistol for $1,500, with orders due in 2024.
The smart weapon scans two forms of biometric identification, optical fingerprint sensor and 3D infrared facial recognition, to ensure that only the real owner of the weapon can activate the firearm, thus reducing the number of accidents and misuse of stolen weapons.
The Broomfield, Colorado-based company hopes its gun will end the cycle of gun violence in America.
More than 13,900 people have already been killed in the US in the first four months of 2023 alone, according to the nonprofit Archive of Gun Violence.
The Smart Gun will come with a smart docking station that will require the new owner to enter their biometric data: fingerprints and facial recognition. The system allows them, and only them, to determine who can unlock weapons.
The total cost of the Smart Gun is currently $1499, although the $1899 Launch Edition and the $2499 Founder Edition are also available.
Biofire’s marketing claims estimate that its intelligent smart weapons could prevent approximately two-thirds of suicide-related firearm deaths in the US each year, which would be an estimated 22,000 lives saved in 2018.
But Biofire’s estimate has been accused of being overpriced.
Analysis for Engineering and Technology (E&T)An internal publication by the not-for-profit Institute of Engineering and Technology in the UK has estimated that only about 6,109 annual firearm deaths will likely be prevented.
E&T based its findings on data from the US Centers for Disease Control and other research reports.
In any case, of course, only if high-tech firearms hit the market in time, as planned.
“Our goal is not just to start taking orders, but to start full production and produce as many products as people want to buy,” Biofire founder and CEO Kai Kloepfer, 26, said. told Denver Business Journal“because it’s a great concept and I think it will benefit the world.”
“He has the ability to exert a gradual, immediate impact that avoids many political dead ends,” Klopfer said.
As a high school student in 2012, Kloepfer lived about half an hour from the Denver suburb of Aurora, where a gunman killed 12 people and injured many more during a midnight screening of the Batman sequel. Rise of the dark knight.
The Gen Z entrepreneur immediately began mulling over the idea of a biometric lock system that could protect firearms from abuse, accidents and theft.
Before long, his fingerprint-scanning pistol concept evolved from a science fair project to a Forbes “30 Under 30” list.
He then came to the attention of Peter Thiel’s libertarian venture capital founding fund, who helped him raise over $30 million for a startup.
Biofire smart weapons use two forms of ID to ensure that the weapon owner has the fail-safe to activate the firearm in all situations. An optical fingerprint sensor (left) scans the wearer’s middle finger while their index finger wraps around the trigger. And a 3D infrared facial recognition system (right) scans back to confirm their identity while the wearer aims the smart gun.
Biofire’s young founder and CEO, 26-year-old Kai Kloepfer, spent years developing a handgun with a fingerprint reader built into the grip and won the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation for Innovation in 2014 shortly after the high school project started. fair
Biofire, along with its smart weapons competitors such as LodeStar Works and SmartGunz, bragging for years that their products are almost ready to hit the market launch dates still flicker on the horizon.
Last year, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s (NSSF) firearms manufacturers’ trade association, Lawrence Keane, expressed skepticism last year about the firms’ repeated pledges.
“If I got a nickel every time in my career when I heard someone say they were going to bring a so-called ‘smart weapon’ to the market,” Keane said, “I would probably be retired by now.” .
However, U.S. buyers willing to pre-order can make a $149 deposit, roughly one tenth of the $1,499 smart gun price, to reserve their gun. via the Biofire website.