KeepKey Initial Experience in a Word: Stressful

This isn't a formal review, or "unboxing," by any stretch of the imagination, but rather a general impression, with highlights. Just setting your expectations, there.

I consider myself a "very interested novice," knowing I'm capable of getting my head around what I need to learn to make use of and benefit from blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, but having simply not devoted the time and effort necessary to fully do so. I've mentioned elsewhere my "Type B Workaholic" nature, which though not making me an overtly stressed out person, encourages directing my energies almost exclusively toward my employer's customers, and away from my own needs, particularly the long-term kind, which require small, but daily, attention, and are most easily neglected.

That time-management topic is for another day; what I'm getting at is I've recognized it's time to take more steps, become more fully educated, and most important, participate!

I've had a Keybase account for a few years, and the recent integration with Stellar and its airdrop for Keybase users served to prod me again into action.

Okay, so now I:

• have some Lumens, and will be getting more, through absolutely no effort of my own,
• have known @lukestokes for some years, can appreciate both something of the vision he sees for the world and the roles blockchains and voluntarily cooperating entities play in that vision,
• know I need to get my hands dirty in order to really learn and be able to participate (and at some point, contribute?)

What next?

Well, step out into this space again by dusting off the credentials for the one other crypto wallet I have access to, get an FIO address, get myself an FIO-compatible wallet, get my hands on the hardware wallet needed for that FIO-compatiible wallet, get some EOS and learn what those folks are doing, etc.. The mechanics involve prerequisite after prerequisite. But that's what it takes, so, okay; I can do it (perhaps with not quite enough research, but then there always seems to more needed,yes?).

Which led me to the KeepKey. I was glad to receive the package, slice the seal on the box, peel off the protective, security shrink wrap plastic from around the device itself, and read the instructions on the exchange/wallet's website.

First thing I hadn't fully grasped was that the device must be used with Chrome or Brave. My PureBrowser Firefox derivative on PureOS from Purism was not going to cut it, because it doesn't do WebUSB, and given prior security concerns around WebUSB that I, of course, knew nothing about, perhaps there is a reason why WebUSB might be a work in progress there.

I'm not installing Chrome on the PureOS laptop, so I had to use another machine.

A few times, the instructions prepared me very carefully for one thing, and then another, slightly different thing happens, making me unsure of what just happened on the device. Why am I seeing that arrow instead of a checkmark? What did I do wrong, when I was looking at the device screen when I should have been looking at the laptop screen, or vice-versa? Are the bootloader and firmware updated, or not? Why is it showing me the old version number instead of the new one? Oh, wait, now it is. Why did the instructions explicitly say to initialize first, then update the firmware, when the very first thing it does after plugging it in is tell me the firmware needs to be updated?

At one point, I thought I'd hosed the device, from all the plugging and unplugging of the device from the laptop, or holding the button down, at probably just the wrong time, during the initial setup. Later, the website timed out, waiting for me to figure out what I was supposed to do next, leaving the KeepKey staring at me with its grid of numbers, embedded therein the PIN I was trying to establish. The device was stuck in one state, and no amount of fiddling on the site helped. Had to start over.

After a few attempts, plugging and unplugging the device, starting initialization again, and seeing more "memory fault" messages than I care to think about, I finally realize I'm supposed to click on the keypad-looking dots with my laptop mouse, not type the PIN into the form field.

I understood that the PIN stays the same, and when you use the device to authenticate, you're presented with a grid of dots corresponding to a similar grid of numbers in a random layout displayed on the KeepKey device, and you enter your PIN using positions that match up. But I was setting things up, and simply had a different picture in my mind of what to expect from the instructions.

I realize how painfully obtuse that makes me look, but when you have a device in your hand that says "choose PIN" and a laptop giving you a grid of dots and a form field into which you can most certainly type, on top of the confusion I'd experienced earlier with the firmware update, I just didn't see what was in front of me. The slight differences between the instructions and what actually seems to happen, step by incremental step, combined with the importance of the device itself, and data which will live on it, for me made the initial experience more stressful than I'd anticipated.

Maybe I'm simply the bigger idiot that hardware and software developers ultimately cannot defend their products against. Maybe I was just very tired after a long day. Maybe the instructions could be tested by people who had less to do with the development of the device and associated software, resulting in subtle, but useful, improvements, especially for novices and "overthinkers." I don't know.

Anyway, it works now, and I really do look forward to continuing the journey.

Clark