Technology relating to automobiles has advanced vastly over the past few years and each day we get to see new technology like Audi’s electric superchargers reducing turbo lag to newer and better air suspensions. Companies are doing the unthinkable, and so has Bentley. No one would have ever thought of a biometric safety box in a car, but Bentley has done it calling it Mulliner Biometric Secure Stowage.
The idea of locking compartments in cars is not new. Glove compartments with locks have been around for ages. A new trend started of keypads on B-pillar which you could use to place your keys inside your car and lock it. The issue is anyone would be able to just smash the window and take your valuables, but still those keypad locks were too mainstream for Bentley that they decided to integrate a bio-metric safe box in the center console to provide absolute peace of mind to owners.
The Mulliner Biometric Secure Stowage unit is hidden from view. We are incorporating the familiar capacitive fingerprint sensor technology from smartphones that can store multiple fingerprints, allowing the user to control who accesses their valuables
Uday Senapati, head of technical operations Mulliner, said.
The Secure Stowage is an aluminum box with a fingerprint reader and a lock machined from a single block. That reduces weight and provides sturdiness but how much weight does it save and what difference would it make, we don’t know. The fingerprint reader integrated into the lid is a capacitive 360-degree fingerprint reader meaning that you can open your Secure Stowage from both the passenger and driver seat. Multiple fingerprints can also be saved, enough to give the whole family access to the secure box.
Bentley has not specified how large the box is, but it seems pretty small, just enough to hold a few valuables. From the looks of it, you could carry a watch perhaps with some little pieces of jewellery and that’s pretty much it.
The design part has completely blown me away; the Secure Stowage box features a chrome bezel with a Mulliner logo engraved into it and a matching fingerprint reader surrounded with chrome lining too. After the car’s ignition switch is turned on a bright white LED is illuminated indicating the Secure Stowage box is active, turning green when an approved fingerprint is detected and red after reading an un-recognised fingerprint keeping the box locked and its contents safe and secure. The box itself is lined with a rubber mat with the hallmark diamond stitching with a dual USB charger and an AUX socket for accessing Bentley’s infotainment system and charging mobile phones. For those who fear technology and are worried about their diamonds getting stuck inside Bentley’s Secure Stowage, fear not because sitting beside the fingerprint reader is a keyhole and you can always use your car key hidden inside the key fob to open the box in case the fingerprint is not responding.
This current option has been developed by Mulliner, which is the personalisation arm of Bentley.
Bentley has not revealed the pricing for the Secure Stowage but for a car that costs over 200,000 (two-hundred thousand) dollars, extra options are never cheap, but if you can shell out this amount of money for a car then a bio-metric storage box may the thing for you no matter what the cost is.
