Four ways in. You will mostly use one of them. Here is which, and why.
Nothing in this section works on the firmware your Vault is running. It is described here because it is what we are building and because the hardware already has what it needs. Use the Vault's own Wi-Fi instead, which is the one route that works today and needs nothing installed. vault.bendflex.in says what has shipped since.
The USB plug is part of the device. There is no cable to find. Push it into a USB socket the way you would a pen drive.
Your computer sees it as a small wired network — a private one, with nothing on it but the vault. A drive also appears, holding a single page that tells you the address to open. Type that address into your browser and you are in.
| Device | Works? | What you need |
|---|---|---|
| Windows, Mac or Linux computer | Yes | Nothing. Any browser. |
| Android phone or tablet | Usually | A USB-A to USB-C data adapter. Charge-only adapters will not work, and look identical. |
| Chromebook | Yes | Nothing, if it has a full-size socket. |
| iPhone or iPad | No | Apple does not allow it. Use the Wi-Fi route instead. |
You might expect to double-click the page on the drive and be done. Browsers deliberately refuse to let a file opened from a drive talk to hardware — a sensible rule that stops any USB stick you plug in from reaching your devices. So the device gives you a proper network address instead. It is one extra step, and it is the reason this works in every browser rather than only in some.
Of the four routes in this chapter, this is the only one built today, and it works from a phone, a tablet or a computer. The other three are the plan. If you are setting up, you are in the right section.
The device makes its own small Wi-Fi network, just for itself. It is not connected to the internet and it is not your home Wi-Fi. Its name and password are shown on the device screen and printed on your identity slip, and both are different for every device we ship.
Every device names itself after its own serial, so two units in the same home never collide — you might see VaultPlug-817C and VaultPlug-A42B side by side. You can also rename yours to something you will recognise, like Sharma-Family-Vault, in Settings. Both units keep their own separate password.
VaultPlug-817C. Those last four characters are unique to your unit and are printed on the screen and on your identity slip.http://192.168.4.1.Android often asks "This network has no internet access. Stay connected?" — say yes. iPhone may show a warning triangle. Both are right: this network deliberately goes nowhere. It exists only so your phone can reach the device sitting in front of you.
If your phone keeps hopping back to mobile data, turn mobile data off for a minute while you finish.
When iPhone opens a small window after you join, that window is a cut-down browser with several things switched off. It is fine for the first few steps, but downloads and backups will not work inside it. Close it, open Safari properly, and go to http://192.168.4.1. Anything beyond initial setup should be done there.
Nothing in this section works on the firmware your Vault is running. It is described here because it is what we are building and because the hardware already has what it needs. Use the Vault's own Wi-Fi instead, which is the one route that works today and needs nothing installed. vault.bendflex.in says what has shipped since.
Once set up, pair the phone app once and after that you can unlock with your fingerprint or face, look things up, and copy a password across. Your phone never keeps a copy of your vault; it asks the device each time and forgets afterwards.
Bluetooth is for daily convenience, not for first setup — pairing is fiddlier than simply plugging the device in.
The device has a Bluetooth 5 radio in its silicon, but no firmware drives it yet and a browser could not reach it even then. Apple does not permit web pages to use Bluetooth at all, and other browsers support it only partially. So this route means installing the BendFlex app.
Until that app is available for your phone, Apple users should use the device's own Wi-Fi, which needs nothing installed. vault.bendflex.in lists what is available today.
Nothing in this section works on the firmware your Vault is running. It is described here because it is what we are building and because the hardware already has what it needs. Use the Vault's own Wi-Fi instead, which is the one route that works today and needs nothing installed. vault.bendflex.in says what has shipped since.
Plug the device into any computer, pick the account on its screen, and press the button. The device pretends to be a keyboard and types the password for you. Nothing is installed, nothing is copied, and the password never appears on screen.
This works on a friend's laptop, an office machine, even a smart TV. It is the thing most owners end up showing people.
This is optional and it is not how you connect to the vault. It is how the vault reaches out, for three specific jobs.
| What it is used for | How often |
|---|---|
| Sending your quarterly encrypted backup email — Chapter 07 | Four times a year |
| Checking whether a software update exists — Chapter 09 | Occasionally, and only if you allow it |
| Getting the correct time, for two-factor codes — Chapter 03 | When it is connected |
Your home Wi-Fi password is stored encrypted inside the vault itself. So the device cannot join your network until somebody has unlocked the vault at least once since it was last powered on. A stolen device, sitting on someone else's desk, cannot quietly connect to anything.
Nothing on the internet can reach your device. It makes a small number of outgoing requests and nothing accepts incoming ones. And if you never set up home Wi-Fi at all, the vault works exactly the same — you simply do the backups yourself.
| Situation | Use |
|---|---|
| Setting up for the first time, on anything | Its own Wi-Fi |
| Setting up on an iPhone or iPad | Its own Wi-Fi |
| Looking something up during the day | Its own Wi-Fi — from your phone's browser |
| Adding a lot of documents at once | Its own Wi-Fi, from a computer — a real keyboard and screen helps |
| Logging into a website on a computer | Copy and paste from the browser. Typing straight into the box is not built yet |
| On someone else's computer | Not built yet. Until it is, do not open your Vault on a machine you do not trust |
BendFlex® Vault · Owner's Manual v2.1 · last updated 27 August 2026