Any safe alternatives to xEM implant?

xEM is not very “brickable” infact it is very difficult to do it. What you are probably seeing is talk of the xm1 and flexm1.

From what I have found in almost I repeat almost all cases where a xEM has been “bricked” (not actually bricked) either a password was set using a blue clone or other chinese cloner or the programmer was removed while programming.

Have a search for xEM bricked Like this
Was fixed using a proxmark which is an amazing investment btw.