June 2022 VivoKey Apex Flex update

Wait til you’re hit by import fees :laughing:

I’m waiting to set aside enough to cover all of it before buying it.

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Maybe this has been asked before and I didnt see it but what is the difference between the apex flex and the x-series vivokey? Is it just form factor?

If you’re referring to the spark2, then there are a lot of differences.

Spark2 can’t use applets as its not a smart card, it just points to whatever you set it to in the vivokey app, which can be either a url of your choosing, your vivokey profile, or nothing. It can do a few other things too but it’s very very different from the Apex.

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Form factor is a big difference. But the Apex can be programmed to do things like be a Tesla key, act like a normal NFC chip, or even do multi factor authentication. It can even do all of those things at once.

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Gotcha. I’m debating on what one I want and I’m kinda @_@ on it

Maybe, they support U2F so I was talking about that.

If the price and process don’t scare you then it’s a way better chip.

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FYI they are working on the x-series Apex as well. Still in development.

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I’ve been wondering about this and how usable it will be given that coupling with the reader will not be as reliable and some Apex applets may take longer than an average tag/more ‘power’ to run.

Can anyone comment whether this will likely be meaningfully different?

Initial testing of unkeyed samples shows the expected reduced performance of an x-series vs flex design, however this doesn’t necessarily indicate poor overall performance of higher power applications.

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I feel that in the case of a password manager or 2fa type situation it may be preferable to have the x-series version since you can move this to the inside wrist to make it less conspicuous.

the OTP application allows you to set a passphrase to generate the codes so only your unlocked phone can request TOTP codes from the apex. as for password management, that depends on the technology involved.

Is there an actual password manager that works yet?

I’m still lost on almost all the otp and private key stuff

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KeepassXC (since version 2.7.0) should support unlocking via NFC Smartcards, i think @StarGate01 was active there.

There is a plugin for KeePass that enables support for fido. Once we finalize our applet it should be pretty good

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Ok cool, that’s going to be my main starting use case for an apex

What’s the situation with iOS? I know it’s sort of not working right now…. But is it actually broken or incompatible, or just a couple slight tweaks needed?

It’s a bug that hides the button you need to tap to pick an app to deploy, but you can manually deploy apps

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Looks “broken” currently with a stop gap work around

This one has the fido…

So it has support for FIDO directly on the chip that doesn’t depend on the VivoKey servers. Ok, I’m sold!

That needle was only one millimeter thicker than the one for a 3mm glassie, right? And I’m going to have to start reading about the aftercare for flexies.

Now why did the Apex become available at the worst time for me, I’ve traveling a bit lately, I still need to find a new installer, and international shipping can be annoying… I think I’ll pick one up when things start to settle down.

full disclosure: I’m still migrating to Apex from the Flex One, but there is an overlap of functionality, so what I say below should apply to Apex with no change.

I’ve been using pass (https://www.passwordstore.org/) with an ssh key stored in my Flex One for years and honestly I could not live without this anymore :slight_smile:

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