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Setup checklist

Ten things, about fifteen minutes. Tick them off as you go — this page remembers where you got to, even if you close it.

Part one — getting in#

1. Find a plug you trustAn ordinary phone charger. Not an unpowered USB hub. If the screen stays dark, it's almost always the cable or the plug — swap both, not just one.
2. Open this page on something that isn't your phoneA laptop, a tablet, anything. In two steps your phone joins the Vault's own Wi-Fi and goes offline — that's intended, and it's awkward if these instructions were on it.
3. Plug the Vault in and watch it wake upGive it five seconds. You'll get an amber padlock and “not set up yet”. That's exactly right.
4. Wait for the “Scan to join Wi-Fi” codeThe screen cycles through three codes. That's a slideshow, not a fault. If your screen is touch-sensitive you can swipe to hold one still.
5. Scan it and join the Vault's Wi-FiYour phone will warn you there's no internet. Correct. That's the entire point of the product.
6. Open http://192.168.4.1Type the numbers rather than the name — they always work. Make sure it's http://, not https://.
7. Choose your passphraseOr let the Vault suggest one. Long and memorable beats short and clever.
8. Write down your recovery words. On paper.The single most important step. We cannot open your vault and we cannot recover it — these words are the only spare key that exists. The Vault will ask for a few of them back to check you really wrote them down.
9. On the same paper, write down the Wi-Fi name and passwordThey're on the Vault's screen right now, and that screen is the only place they exist. If it ever cracks or fails, this is what gets you back in. Thirty seconds now; no way to recover it later.
10. Put the paper somewhere you'd keep a passportNot in the same bag as the Vault. The point of a spare key is that it isn't next to the lock.

Part two — the ten minutes that make it worth owning#

Setup proves the thing switches on. This part is where you find out why you bought it. Four small things, and by the end there is something real in your vault that your family can actually reach.

1. Put in one password you'd genuinely hate to loseNot a test one. Your bank, your email, the account everything else resets through. The whole point is that it stops living in your head or a notes app.
2. Let the Vault type it for youOpen that account on a laptop, put the cursor in the password box, and hit Type. The Vault types it in like a keyboard. Nothing installed, nothing copied to a clipboard for some other app to read. This is the moment most people go “oh”.
3. Upload one document that mattersAn insurance policy, a property paper, a passport scan. Needs a microSD card in the Vault, formatted FAT32 — if there isn't one, it'll tell you plainly. It's encrypted before it lands on the card, so the card alone is useless to anyone who finds it.
4. Add the person who'd need this if you weren't hereYour spouse, usually. Add them under People, then choose item by item what they can see — the insurance policy, yes; your work logins, no. That control is the reason this isn't just a USB stick in a drawer.
5. Tell them how to get in — in person, not by emailShow them the Vault, let them join its Wi-Fi and open it once while you're standing there. Never message or email the passphrase, the recovery words, or the Wi-Fi password. Nothing about your vault has ever crossed the internet, and one helpful message undoes that permanently. There's a message you can safely send below to get them round.

Something to send them#

Type the two names and send it however you normally talk to them. Works from your phone or your laptop — whichever is online at the time.

Their name Your name

Hi ___, I've set up a small device at home called a BendFlex Vault. It holds the things you'd need if something happened to me — insurance, property papers, the important account logins. It isn't online and it isn't in any cloud, so there's no link I can send you and no password to email. That's deliberate: it's the reason it's safe. I've given you access to the parts that matter. Next time you're over it takes about two minutes — you connect to it from your phone and I'll show you how to open it. Worth doing sooner rather than later. If you want to read up first, everything is at vault.bendflex.in — ___

Copy this message Then paste it into WhatsApp, Messages or email.

BendFlex® Vault · Setup checklist · last updated 27 August 2026