We all want to keep our personal data safe and secure, and we all know that our cell phones can be a treasure trove of data for identity thieves or other ne’er do wells. Credit cards are also great, but can be skimmed, or sometimes even scanned while they’re in your wallet. Silent Pocket has made it easy to keep those prying eyes at bay with a line of products meant to keep outside signals out, and inside signals in. In this review, I’ll be talking about the Silent Pocket Faraday Cage Sleeve and V2 Bi-fold Wallet. Let’s see how they did keeping my personal data secure.
Specifications
The Silent Pocket products include the following features and specifications:
V2 Bi-fold Wallet
- Smooth, supple Genuine Napa Top Grain Leather that is made to withstand years of daily use
- Dimensions: 11 X 9.4 cm // 4.3 X 3.7 in // 2.4 oz
- Versatile and lightweight
- RFID / NFC secure 125 KHz & 13.56 MHz
- 6 card slots, 2 small pockets, 1 billfold
- Clean, minimalist Silent Pocket branding
Faraday Cage Sleeve
- Smooth, supple Genuine Napa leather that is made to withstand years of daily use
- High tension thread / drill lining
- Diamond pattern shielding made exclusively for Silent Pocket
- Shields up to 100 decibels (db); best on the market
- Water resistant
- Interlocking magnetic RF seal; easy to use without straps or velcro
- Shields against EMR radiation
- Blocks GPS tracking
- Shields 100dB
- Blocks frequencies between 800MHz – 5 GHz
- Blocks CDMA/GSM/DCS/PHS/3G/4G/LTE
- Blocks Wifi 2.4 – 5 GHz, Bluetooth (2.4GHz), and GPS (1-2GHz)
- Blocks RFID / NFC 125 KHz & 13.56 MHz
- Blocks Carrier, hardware, and OS agnostic
What’s in the Box
- 1 x V2 Bi-fold Wallet
- 1 x Faraday Cage Sleeve
Design
Both Silent Pocket products in this review are made of a soft, supple leather. The Faraday Cage Sleeve comes in several sizes for different types of phones or even small tablets. The wallet is, as previously mentioned, bi-fold, and includes 3 angled slots on each side for credit cards or IDs, as well as additional pockets underneath the slots on each side. The positioning of the slots allows for easier removal of your ID or cards.
The wallet does have a pretty stiff feel to it, though there are layers underneath the outer leather layer that prevent outside signals from penetrating its perimeter. The Sleeve also has a slight “crinkle” to it when moved or flexed, and it also retains its shape well and doesn’t bend or fold easily.
The top of the sleeve features an outer pocket that only blocks RFID and NFC which is relatively easy to slide items into. Behind that pocket is the heavy-duty signal blocker. That pocket obliterates all incoming and outgoing signals from anything within and it takes a bit more effort to get into. This pocket requires pressure on the outer corners, and usually some additional help pulling from the middle to open and stay open. The very inner lip of this pocket features an offset fold that creates an interlocking zipper-like magnetic seal when pressed together. The inside of this pocket has a silver diamond patterned fabric.
Both products look and feel good with the premium leather construction. Each features minimal branding, and for the most part simply look like a standard wallet or cell phone sleeve from the outside.
Ease of Use
The Silent Pocket V2 wallet is obviously pretty easy to use. Simply insert your cash, IDs, credit cards, insurance cards, or any other items that you’ll need on a daily basis, fold it up, put it in your pocket. Easy enough, right?
The Silent Pocket Sleeve isn’t too much more difficult, simply place your phone or any other item you’d like to have “disappear” into either of the two pockets, depending on just how much you want to be blocked. As I mentioned in the Design section, opening the inner pocket will likely take two hands for most, but once open it’s as easy as sliding in or pulling out whatever you’ve got stored.
Performance
I’ll get this out of the way up front, but I don’t have any type of fancy scanning hardware or any kind of scientific tests to show what these products are capable of. I do have some real-world examples of some things you’re likely to see.
At my office, we have access cards that get us into secured areas of the office. The readers are able to scan the cards if they are in close proximity to the reader, and they do not normally need to touch the reader in order to scan. I generally keep my card in my wallet, because I’ll always have my wallet on me, meaning I’ll never be without my access card. I’ll usually just pull my wallet out of my pocket, hold it near the reader, and be on my way.
The Silent Pocket wallet completely blocks the signal from the reader, meaning the card does not work at all when inside this wallet. I did have one instance where I held the wallet in a sideways manner that did allow the card to be read, though I couldn’t seem to replicate it more than once. I’m confident that the lining of the wallet will block the other types of signals as suggested, as it shut my access card down immediately.
The Silent Pocket Sleeve has a few more blocking capabilities. NFC blocking was easy enough to test: try to establish an NFC connection through a similarly thick piece of fabric, then try the same in the Silent Pocket Sleeve. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth blocking worked similarly. In fact, placing my phone into the sleeve really just shut off the screen almost immediately due to the magnetic RF seal.
Not everybody will have a need for such a locked-down phone, but for those who are carrying especially private or sensitive information, an additional layer of protection can definitely add some peace of mind.
Price/Value
The V2 bi-fold wallet is priced at $55.95, while the Faraday Cage Sleeves start at $109.95 for the Medium sleeve, with options going up to $219.95 for the Extra-Large sleeve. Both the Sleeve and the Wallet are available slightly cheaper on Amazon too. With that said, $55.95 still isn’t a bad deal at all for the wallet, as you’re getting a Napa leather wallet with additional protection for your ID and credit cards. Many designer leather wallets are priced similarly though without any of the added protection provided by Silent Pocket. The extra discount at Amazon is just icing on the cake.
The Faraday Cage Sleeves are a bit pricey, but for those whose privacy is paramount, this might be a small price to pay. This sleeve will stop all signals from getting to or leaving your device, which is definitely an attractive feature for some. You can save yourself a few bucks on the Faraday Cage Sleeves on Amazon as well.
Wrap Up
Everybody wants to keep their personal data private. Not everybody will need all of the protection that Silent Pocket provides, though there’s something to be said for feeling like a secret agent and letting your device “drop off the grid” completely. Silent Pocket provides a wide range of products that do what they say: They block signal coming to or from your device and add an additional layer of protection in order to help keep your personal information safe.
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