Questions
Everything we have been asked so far.
Grouped so you can find your question rather than scroll past everyone else's. If yours is not here, support will answer it and we will add it.
Questions
About Bolt
The idea
Do I own the laptop?
Yes. The hardware is yours outright once you have paid for it, and it stays yours whatever happens to your compute plan.
Without an active plan it cannot do any computing, because the computing is the service rather than something stored in the machine. Start a plan again and it picks up where it was.
Why is storage its own dial?
Because space for files and speed of work are different needs. Somebody who keeps a large photo library does not necessarily want more processing power, and somebody editing video does not necessarily want more room.
They were bundled together when plans came in tiers, which meant one of the two was always being bought unnecessarily. As separate dials, neither pays for the other.
Most people will never move it far, because their documents live wherever the service that made them keeps them.
What do the four dials actually mean?
Processing power is how fast things happen: whether a big file opens at once or after a pause. Memory is how much you can have open before something has to close. Bandwidth is how much video and audio can reach your screen and how sharp it is. Cloud storage is space for files, and it is separate from whatever service you already use.
Each is set from one to four, and the price is the sum. Everything at one is the floor and covers homework, browsing, documents, spreadsheets, email and video calls.
What happens if I turn a dial down?
You lose what that level gave you and nothing else. Drop bandwidth and streaming stops; drop processing and heavy work runs slower. Everything else carries on exactly as it was, and you can turn it back up any month.
Stopping the plan altogether is different, because the plan is what does the computing. The machine stops working until you start one again. The laptop stays yours the whole time.
If you were using more cloud storage than your new level covers, we will warn you before anything is removed and give you time to move files out.
Can I change tiers later?
Yes, and that is the point of the product. Turn bandwidth up for the winter and down in the summer. Turn processing up for the month you are editing video and back down afterwards.
Every dial moves on its own.
Do I still need a VPN?
For the most common reason people buy one, no. Your Bolt does its work on a computer in a data center, and that computer is what talks to the internet, so the sites you visit see the data center rather than your home connection.
Be clear about what that is and is not, though. It is not anonymity. We run the computer doing the work, so we can see the traffic it sends, in the same way a VPN company can see yours. You are not removing the need to trust somebody; you are choosing who, and not paying a second company every month for it. If you need real anonymity, use a tool built for that.
Can I choose where my computing happens?
Yes, at setup or later in settings. We will suggest the data center closest to you, because distance costs you speed: every keystroke has to travel there and back before anything appears on screen. A region on the other side of the world feels slower at everything, all day.
One thing we will not encourage is picking a distant region to reach a service that is not licensed where you live. Plenty of them check, and that is between you and them.
What happens when I close the lid?
You are signed out immediately, and everything you had open is kept in your account exactly as it was. Open it again, sign in, and it comes back mid-sentence. It is the same session, not a saved copy.
There is no shutting down and nothing to save first. The lid is the off switch and the lock at the same time.
Can I sign in on somebody else's Bolt?
Yes, on any Bolt that has not been reported lost or stolen, and you get your machine rather than a guest account, because none of it was ever on the laptop. Close the lid and it is theirs again, with nothing of yours left on it.
A reported machine stops accepting sign-ins until the owner tells us it is back.
The one thing that does not travel with you is FamilySafe. That belongs to the laptop, not to your account, so a K model stays a K model whoever signs in.
Do I sign in every time I open it?
Yes. Closing the lid signs you out, so opening it means signing in again, and Bolt has no fingerprint reader.
Your screen name is short and yours, so in practice it is a few characters and then your password. On a Bolt already registered to you, that is the whole process.
For the short trip to the kettle there is the screen saver instead. Press the power key once and your Quick PIN brings the screen straight back, with everything still open.
What happens if I have no internet?
Your files and your session live in your account, so Bolt reaches them over the internet. It needs a connection to work.
Is signing in every time going to be tedious?
No. You sign in with a Bolt screen name rather than an email address, so it is short, it is yours, and there is no domain to type.
The password is the part we cannot speed up, and we would not want to.
What is the difference between the screen lock and closing the lid?
Press the power key once and the screen goes to a screen saver. Everything stays open and running, and your Quick PIN brings it straight back. That is for the walk to the kettle.
Close the lid and you are signed out completely. The session is kept in your account rather than on the laptop, so you can pick it up on this Bolt or any other. That is for when you are done.
Holding the power key starts a countdown and then shuts the laptop down, which you will rarely need.
Is there a separate lock key?
No. A press of the power key starts the screen saver, a hold shuts the laptop down after a countdown, and the lid does the sign-out. We would rather give the power key a second job than take a key away from the keyboard to make room for one more.
What do I sign in with?
A Bolt screen name and a password. Not an email address.
A screen name is short, it is yours, and there is no domain to type on a sign-in screen you use several times a day. It also means the address you use for everything else is not the thing standing between somebody and your account.
Schools and companies are the exception: they sign their people in by work or school email address, which is exactly why a screen name cannot contain an @ sign. Both go in the same box and the @ is what tells them apart.
What if I lose my Bolt Key?
Your own registered Bolts still work exactly as before. A lost key does not lock you out of your own machines, it only stops you signing in on somebody else's until you have a replacement.
Report it lost and we retire it, so a key somebody finds is a piece of plastic. Then order another.
Someone found my key. Can they get into my account?
Not on its own. The key is the piece you have; your password is the piece you know. Whoever picks it up still needs the second one, and they are holding a plug with nothing written on it and no clue whose account it belongs to.
Does the key take up a power port?
It goes in the one you are not using. There is a power connector on each side of every Bolt, so whichever side is charging, the other is free.
Do I need a key for every Bolt?
Not one per laptop. A key belongs to your account rather than to a machine, and the first Bolt on an account registers without one. So four people in a house, each with their own account and one Bolt, need no keys at all.
You need one if you want a second Bolt on your own account, or if you want to sign in on somebody else's. One person with three Bolts needs one key, not three.
A work or school seat always needs one, every time you sign in, because a seat has no machine registered to it. If you hold a seat, your own account and that seat sit on the same key.
What does the power key actually do?
Press it once and the screen goes to a screen saver, with everything still open behind it. Touch anything and it asks for your Quick PIN.
Hold it down and a countdown appears telling you how many seconds are left before it shuts down. Let go before it finishes and nothing happens. Hold it again to turn it back on.
Why a countdown instead of just shutting down?
Because holding a key by accident should not cost you what you were doing. A number counting down tells you what is about to happen while there is still time to stop it, rather than after.
Can my child use non-Bolt headphones with a K or T Bolt?
No. K and T models only send sound to Bolt Wi-Fi Headphones. No other headphone, earbud or speaker will pair with them.
That is what makes the volume cap real. Bolt controls how loud a signal it sends, but other headphones have their own amplifier and can add loudness after the fact, so a cap that stops at the laptop is not a cap at all.
The built-in speakers work on every model and are capped the same way, so nothing about the machine waits on anything else.
Why can they only use Bolt headphones?
Because they are the only headphones that take the volume cap from the laptop and keep it. Any other pair has its own amplifier and its own volume dial, and no laptop can reach inside them to stop that.
It is a limit of how headphones work rather than a rule we invented. On a K or T machine the built-in speakers are capped the same way, so nothing waits on buying anything.
How much Bolt Cloud Storage do I get?
Cloud storage is one of the four dials, so you decide. Level 1 is enough to move files between the services you already use and costs nothing on top of the base.
Your files can stay in Drive, iCloud, Dropbox or whatever you use now. Bolt Cloud Storage is there if you want it rather than somewhere you have to move to.
What if I need more storage but nothing else?
Turn the storage dial up and leave the other three where they are. That is what separate dials are for: nobody is pushed into paying for processing power to get room for photos.
What is the site checker?
A tool we will put on this site. You type in a website, one at a time, and it tells you which of the four ratings can reach it: whether a K Bolt opens it, whether a T Bolt does, and so on down to Unrestricted.
It is there so you can look up the sites your family actually uses, the school portal, the games, the streaming services, before deciding which version of the machine you want.
Are these final specifications?
No. Every specification on this site is a goal for a design that has not been built yet, and the cloud computing figures are planned rather than measured. Both may change.
Product images are illustrative renders, not photographs of a finished product. We would rather say that plainly than have you find out by comparing them to the real thing.
When will Bolt be available?
We are not giving a date. Bolt is still being built, and a date from a company at this stage is a guess dressed up as a commitment.
What we can say is that we will not announce one until we are confident in it, and that leaving an address is the way to hear when we do.
How do I contact you?
hello@euvessa.com, for anything at all. Bolt, FamilySafe, the interface, something that is not on this page, or to tell us we have something wrong.
There is one address rather than a department for each thing, because there is not much of a company yet and we would rather answer you ourselves than route you.
Connection
Does Bolt work without an internet connection?
Not for most of what it does. Bolt is built around a cloud computing session, so a connection is required for the full experience. Some limited offline functionality is planned, supported by the local flash storage, but Bolt is not designed to be used offline for extended periods.
If you work somewhere without reliable internet, Bolt is probably not the right computer for you, and we would rather say that plainly.
What happens if my internet goes out?
Your cloud session keeps your work where it is; it does not disappear because your connection dropped. When you reconnect, you return to it. The planned behavior for unsaved work at the moment a connection drops is still being finalized, and we will describe it precisely rather than promise something we have not built.
Where are my files stored?
In your cloud account, in a folder called My Files, exactly as on any other computer. Download a file from the web and it appears there. Upload a file to a website and your normal file picker opens. Documents and Pictures work the same way.
The intent is that you should not have to think about whether a file is local or remote.
Can I print from Bolt?
Not directly. Bolt does not print, and we would rather say so plainly than half-support it.
Wherever another machine would offer Print, a Bolt offers Save as PDF. You get the same dialog you are used to — paper size, orientation, margins, scale, headers and footers — and one thing to press at the end of it. The file lands in My Files.
If you do need paper, there are two routes and both are ordinary. Many Wi-Fi printers have their own email address: send the PDF to it and the page comes out, with nothing installed at either end. Failing that, send the file to your phone and print from there, which is how most people print already. Either way the PDF is the thing you are sending, and a PDF is the format every printer and every phone will accept.
The reason we do not do it directly is that printing is the last thing on a computer that still needs a driver, and a driver is a piece of somebody else's software running on your machine with more access than it needs. Bolt does not install software, so it does not install those either. Supporting a handful of recent network printers and failing on the rest would have been worse than not offering it.
Is there a delay with wireless audio?
A small one, yes. Wireless audio always carries some latency. For music, video and calls you will not notice it, because video playback adjusts for it automatically.
Where it matters is audio work done frame by frame, and rhythm games.
Bolt Wi-Fi Headphones are the answer to that. They do not use Bluetooth. They take the audio over Wi-Fi, which carries far more of it and carries it faster, so the delay is small enough to stop being something you work around. If you edit audio or play anything that depends on timing, those are the pair to have.
They are also the only headphones a K or T machine will pair with, for a different reason: they are the only ones that take the volume cap from the laptop and keep it.
Which Wi-Fi does Bolt use?
The newest kind available. The exact version is listed on the product page, and marked as not final until the part is chosen. We will name the exact standard, and any certification, once it is confirmed rather than before.
Will Bolt's Wi-Fi still be fast enough in a few years?
That is the reasoning behind specifying it the way we have. The radio is the one component that cannot move to the cloud and cannot be replaced later, so it starts with far more capacity than most home connections use today.
We are not going to put a number of years on that, because it depends on your internet service rather than on the laptop. What we will say is that the radio is not the part of Bolt designed to run out first.
Do I need a fast router or a fast internet plan?
Bolt cannot be faster than the connection it is on, so yes, your router and your internet service matter more here than they would on a conventional laptop. A newer router lets Bolt use everything the radio is capable of.
We have not yet published a recommended minimum connection speed. When we have tested against real cloud sessions we will, and it will be a measured figure rather than a comfortable one.
The hardware
What is the Message Bar?
A thin display along the top of the keyboard, where the function keys usually sit. Notifications appear there instead of on the main screen.
The reason it exists is screen sharing. Everyone has had a message pop up mid-presentation, and the usual fix is to switch notifications off and then miss the one that mattered. On Bolt they arrive on the bar in front of you, not on the screen everyone else is watching.
Isn't that just a Touch Bar?
No, and the difference is the whole point. The Touch Bar replaced keys you could feel with a surface you could not, so using it was worse than using the keys it removed.
The Message Bar takes nothing away. There is nothing to press on it, no function key was removed to make room for it, and it never changes what your keyboard does. It only shows you things.
Does the Message Bar make my notifications private?
It keeps them off the screen you are sharing, which is not the same thing. Anyone sitting beside you can read the bar exactly as they could read your screen.
What it solves is the specific problem of a message being broadcast to a meeting. It does not make your notifications secret from the room you are in.
Will every app's notifications show up there?
We do not know yet, and we are not going to claim otherwise. Some applications will route notifications through the system in a way we can redirect, and some will draw their own on screen.
We will publish which kinds work before Bolt ships.
Could the Message Bar help with phishing?
No. Not in what ships, and we are not going to imply otherwise.
It is the thing we would most like to do with it, and it is why the bar is a display rather than a strip of lights. Phishing works because everything inside a browser window can be copied, and a bar outside the window is one place a page cannot reach. Whether we can make that genuinely useful, rather than one more thing people learn to ignore, is not settled.
For now the Message Bar keeps notifications off the screen you are sharing. That is what it does, and it is all we are claiming for it.
What color is the keyboard backlight?
White. The light itself is plain white, and what you see is that white light coming up through your silicone, so a yellow Bolt glows warm and a blue one glows cool. The color comes from the laptop you chose, not from a setting.
The sealed keyboard helps here. Because there are no gaps between the keys, the light spreads evenly through the surface instead of leaking out around the edge of every keycap.
Does the backlight affect battery life?
It does. Lighting a keyboard costs power on any laptop.
Bolt is planned to let you set the brightness and to dim or switch it off automatically on battery, because a long day away from a socket usually matters more than a lit keyboard. We will publish battery figures with the backlight both on and off rather than quoting only the flattering number.
How do I clean the keyboard without typing?
Ask for wipe mode. The keyboard stops sending anything for thirty seconds, which is long enough to wipe the whole deck and put the cloth down, and it comes back on its own.
A countdown shows on the Message Bar so you can see how long you have left. Nothing you do in those thirty seconds reaches what is on screen.
Ports
Why doesn't Bolt have USB ports?
Because the design assumes the things you connect already work wirelessly: headphones, speakers, phones and storage.
Removing the ports removes the cutouts, the controllers and the thickness they demand, and that budget goes to parts you use every day.
It is a real trade-off, not a cost saving dressed up as a philosophy. If you rely on wired accessories, Bolt will not suit you. Printers are the clearest case: Bolt does not print directly, and saves a PDF instead, which you can email to a Wi-Fi printer or send to your phone.
Why are there two power ports?
So the cable never has to cross your desk. There is one round power socket on the left side and an identical one on the right, and you use whichever is closer to the outlet. Use one at a time. The second socket is there for convenience, not for plugging in two chargers at once.
Can I use Bluetooth headphones?
Yes. Bluetooth headphones, or Bolt Wi-Fi Headphones, are the only ways to listen privately, because there is no socket for wired ones. Bluetooth pairs with earbuds, over-ear headphones, speakers, keyboards, mice and controllers, and Bolt holds several devices paired at once so moving from desk speakers to earbuds does not mean pairing again.
K and T are the exception. Those models send audio only to Bolt Wi-Fi Headphones, because they are the only headphones that take the volume cap from the laptop and keep it. No other headphone, earbud or speaker will pair with a K or T Bolt. The built-in speakers work normally on every model, and are capped too.
Keyboards, mice and controllers pair on every model. The restriction is about audio out, not about Bluetooth itself.
Wired headphones would need a Bluetooth transmitter of their own.
Can the Wi-Fi headphones be stolen and used on another machine?
Not if you lock them, and locking is free.
A pair can be tied to a household, to an organization, to a single account, or to a single machine. You can combine those: a school can lock a set to the school and to one student, so they work on that student’s Bolt and nowhere else, including on another Bolt in the same building.
Locked headphones play nothing anywhere else. Not quieter, not in mono, nothing: they pair, they report that they are locked, and they stay silent. There is no resale value in a pair that only works in one house, which is the only deterrent that works on something small enough to put in a pocket.
The lock is changed by whoever pays for the account they are tied to, so a pair can follow a child from a school seat to a personal account when they leave.
Anything we have not settled yet is marked to be announced rather than guessed at. If your question is not here, write to us and we will answer it honestly, including when the answer is we don't know yet.
Questions
Safety and security
FamilySafe
What is FamilySafe?
FamilySafe is a content protection level built into the machine rather than into one browser or one extension. It works at two levels.
Whole sites. A site is allowed or blocked according to its rating. Some are blocked for what they are, and some carry a range, in which case the machine is served the part it is entitled to.
Inside a site. Where a site holds a mix, the parts above the machine's level are not shown at all.
There are four models: K, T, A and Unrestricted. Which one a machine is gets decided when it is built, and it is a physical part rather than a setting, so there is nothing on the finished laptop to switch off.
What's the difference between K, T, A and Unrestricted?
K, for Kids, is the most protective configuration, intended for younger children.
T, for Teens, is less restrictive, intended for teenagers.
A, for Adults, is ordinary adult computing, designed to block pornography, explicit sexual content and gambling.
Unrestricted applies no FamilySafe content restriction at all.
K, T and A laptops carry their letter inside a small rounded rectangle on the underside. An Unrestricted laptop has no marking.
Can FamilySafe guarantee that inappropriate content will never appear?
No. FamilySafe is designed to reduce exposure to content outside the level you choose, and it is an aid rather than a guarantee. No filtering system catches everything. Some content that should be blocked will get through, and some appropriate content will be blocked by mistake.
It is not a substitute for a parent knowing what a child is doing. We would rather tell you that now than have you discover it later.
Can I change the FamilySafe level later?
Yes, for $149. K to T when they hit their teens, T to A when they leave school. The machine follows the child rather than the child outgrowing the machine.
The rating is a physical thing rather than a setting: a FamilySafe chipset fused to the engraved plate that names it, in one small module behind a cover on the underside. The account payer orders the new module and we cut it to that laptop’s serial number. It arrives in the post; two screws and it is done. Nothing of yours moves, because nothing of yours was on it: your account and your files are in the data center, and the same case comes back with the same scratches on it. It takes about a week.
What you cannot do is change it at home, and neither can your child. That is the whole point of it being a part rather than a password.
Do I need to set up my child's Bolt for them?
No. Hand it over and let them open it. A FamilySafe Bolt is already configured for its level before it leaves the factory, so your child sets it up themselves the way they would any other laptop, and it is protected from the first time it switches on.
There is no parent account to create, no app to install on your phone, and nothing for you to maintain.
Can I get reports on what my child is browsing?
No. FamilySafe blocks, it does not report. There is no history, no summary email and no activity log for anyone to read.
If a record of what your child did online is what you are after, FamilySafe is not the product for that, and we would rather say so before you buy one than after.
Does FamilySafe limit how loud headphones can get?
Yes, on the K, T and A models. Loud headphones damage hearing quietly, over years, and a child has no way of knowing it is happening.
K is capped at the level health bodies recommend for children. T sits a little higher. A is capped by default and can be raised, with a warning shown when you do. An Unrestricted Bolt has no cap at all.
The exact levels are still being set and we will publish them before Bolt ships rather than quoting a number we have not tested.
Can my child get around the volume cap?
Not on a K or T Bolt. The cap is part of the model, like the content filtering, so there is no setting to turn it off and nothing to argue about. Those models will not send sound to anything except Bolt Wi-Fi Headphones, which take the cap from the laptop and keep it, so there is nothing to plug in that could undo it.
On an A Bolt it is different, and worth being straight about. A pairs with any headphones you like, and headphones with their own amplifier and volume dial can add loudness after the fact that Bolt cannot reach inside and stop. A is capped by default, and that cap makes a damaging level much harder to reach, not impossible.
So the short answer depends on the rating. If a hard limit is the reason you are choosing FamilySafe, K and T are the ones that give you one.
Will streaming work on a K or T Bolt?
Not when we ship. Music, film and television catalogues mix everything together, and there is no way for us to tell one track or one title from another from outside the service, so K and T block them entirely at first.
The plan is to line a Bolt's rating up with the ratings the industry already uses: G films with TV-Y and TV-Y7 shows and clean songs on K, PG and PG-13 films with TV-PG and TV-14 shows on T, and R films, TV-MA shows and explicit songs on A. That needs agreements with the providers that we do not have yet, so there is no date to give you.
If streaming on a child's laptop matters, this is worth knowing before you choose K or T rather than after it arrives.
Can I change the rating if the streaming limit is a problem?
A rating change is $149 and the module comes to you in the post rather than the laptop coming to us. K to T lifts the streaming limit, which is the usual reason a family moves up.
We would rather tell you about the limit now than have you discover it in month two.
Can I change the FamilySafe rating later?
Yes, for $149. K to T when they hit their teens, T to A when they leave school. The machine follows the child rather than the child outgrowing the machine.
The rating is a physical thing rather than a setting: a FamilySafe chipset fused to the engraved plate that names it, in one small module behind a cover on the underside. The account payer orders the new module and we cut it to that laptop’s serial number. It arrives in the post; two screws and it is done. Nothing of yours moves, because nothing of yours was on it: your account and your files are in the data center, and the same case comes back with the same scratches on it. It takes about a week.
What you cannot do is change it at home, and neither can your child. That is the whole point of it being a part rather than a password.
Can a parent see where a child's Bolt is, or what they have been doing?
No, and that is deliberate rather than an oversight.
A FamilySafe Bolt is not tied to a parent account. There is no dashboard, no pairing, no activity history, no screen viewing and no location following, because there is no account linking the two machines together. Location belongs to whoever signs in to that Bolt, and to nobody else.
The protection is in the hardware instead. You made the decision that mattered when you chose the level, and the laptop keeps to it whether or not anyone is watching.
Lost and stolen
My Bolt was stolen. Do I need my key to use it again if I get it back?
No. Reporting it stolen locks it to you, so it signs in for you with your password and for nobody else at all. The key is for adding a machine to your account, and a Bolt you already own is already on it.
That is deliberate. Losing a laptop is bad enough without also needing the small plug you probably kept in the same bag.
Could a thief use their own Bolt Key to get into my stolen laptop?
No. Once you report it, that laptop signs in for its registered owner and nobody else. A key authorizes a new machine on your own account; it is not a skeleton key for somebody else's.
Does reporting it stolen kick the thief out of my session?
There is no session to kick them out of. Closing the lid signs you out every time, so a laptop that has been picked up and carried off is already signed out before it leaves the room.
Reporting it decides who can sign in next, which is the part that matters. Whoever has it can open the lid as many times as they like and it will only ever let you in.
So what actually protects me if my Bolt is stolen?
Three things, and the first is the important one.
Your data was never on it. Your files live in your cloud account behind your sign-in. A thief has taken a screen and a keyboard, not your documents.
You can cut it off. Sign in from any browser, remove that Bolt from your account, and it is designed to immediately lose access to any computing session.
It is then worth very little. A Bolt with no account is a laptop that cannot compute. We would rather reduce the reason to take one in the first place than make promises about chasing it afterwards.
What is the QR code on the bottom of my Bolt?
A return tag, laser-etched rather than printed, so it survives being carried around for years. Anyone who finds your Bolt can scan it with any phone camera and reach a page explaining how to get it back to you.
It needs no app, no account, and it works when the battery is flat or the laptop will not switch on, which is usually when a lost laptop gets found.
Does the QR code show my name and address to whoever scans it?
No. The code is a random string of characters and nothing else. No name, no address, no phone number, no email. Scanning it tells a stranger that the laptop is registered and how to start a return, not who you are.
The plan is that we sit in the middle: the finder gets a prepaid label, so returning it costs them nothing, and neither of you sees the other's address.
How does Lost and Found work?
Every Bolt has a return code etched on the underside. Somebody who finds it scans that code without being able to read anything on the machine. What they see next is up to you, and there are three ways to set it.
Deposit up front. You pay for the return service and the finder’s reward in advance. That is the only version where the reward is shown at the moment somebody scans the code, which is the moment they are deciding whether to bother. A stranger looking at a laptop on a train seat behaves differently when the screen says there is $50 in it.
Card on file, no deposit. The return service without a reward. Nothing is charged unless a Bolt actually comes back to you. The finder still gets a prepaid label and it still costs them nothing, but there is no reward to show them, because we will not display money we have not collected.
Basic notification. Free, and no return service. You are told the Bolt has been found and where. From there you choose which way the contact goes: the finder can be asked to leave their details, which many people will not do, or you can have yours shown to them, which means handing your name and a phone number to somebody you know nothing about.
That last trade is why we recommend the return service. With it, nobody gives anybody anything. The finder sees a label, we receive the laptop, we check it over and send it on to you. Neither of you learns the other's name, address or telephone number, and the two of you never have to arrange a meeting.
You choose which of the three you want when a machine is registered, not when the account is made. The return code belongs to one laptop, so there is nothing to attach the choice to until that laptop signs in for the first time. Whoever pays can put deposits on the account beforehand, and a machine choosing the return service at registration draws on them.
What if I don't sign up?
The code on the underside resolves to nothing, and whoever finds your Bolt has no way to reach you through us. Everything else still holds: your files are in your account rather than on the laptop, and you can remove the device from any browser.
You can switch Lost and Found on at any point afterwards.
Does signing up mean my address is in the code?
No. The code etched into your Bolt is a random string of characters and holds no personal information, whether you sign up or not.
What changes is on our side. Once you are signed up, our system can connect that code to an address, because otherwise we would not know where to send the laptop. If you would rather that connection did not exist, leave Lost and Found switched off.
How does locking a stolen Bolt work?
Every Bolt has one registered owner, set during setup. Go to our site from a phone or any other computer, type the owner's screen name, and from then on that Bolt accepts that one account and refuses every other, including a fresh setup.
That is the whole process. No password, no signing in, no link to wait for. It takes about five seconds, and the minutes right after a laptop is taken are the ones that matter.
What does the lock actually achieve?
It makes a stolen Bolt close to worthless, and over time that is what makes it not worth taking. There is nothing on it to sell, nothing to wipe and reuse, and no way to release it.
Be clear about the limit: it does not stop somebody taking it today and it will not tell you where it went. Getting the laptop itself back is what the return code on the underside is for.
How do I sell a Bolt?
Sign in as the owner and release the device. It then sets up fresh for whoever gets it next, with none of your things on it, because none of your things were on it to begin with.
Releasing needs the owner's password, and it is refused while the device is reported stolen. Otherwise the release button would simply be the theft.
My laptop was stolen. How do I report it without a computer?
From a phone, a library computer, a friend's Bolt, anything with a browser. It is one field on a web page and you do not need to sign into anything, so you can do it from a device that is not yours.
Somebody else can do it for you as well. The report needs an email address and nothing more, and locking the wrong laptop achieves nothing, so there is no reason to keep it to yourself.
Anyone can type my screen name in. Isn't that a problem?
It sounds like one, and then there is nothing to actually gain from it.
The lock does not point at whoever typed the name. It points at the registered owner. So if a stranger locks your Bolt, all they have done is make your laptop work for you and nobody else. You open the lid, sign in, and it is over.
The one real nuisance is if you had lent the laptop to somebody: they will be locked out until you sign in once. That is the whole cost, and it buys reporting that takes five seconds and needs nothing but an address you already know.
Security
Does the checkmark only light up for password boxes?
No, it lights up for anything that came from Bolt. Setting the laptop up, the sign-in screen, the Quick PIN screen, Settings, and every system message including a low battery warning.
Phishing is not only about passwords. Plenty of it is a button: your storage is full, your session expired, a virus was found, click here. A light that only vouched for password boxes would miss all of that.
Why does everything from Bolt take the whole screen?
Because it is what makes the checkmark mean something. If a system box could sit on top of a web page, the light would be telling you that one part of the screen is real and leaving you to guess about the rest.
Anything from us fills the display instead. Light on: everything you can click or type into is ours. Light off: none of it is, whatever it claims.
Why does the checkmark only ever mean Bolt?
Because a light that could mean two things means nothing. If it lit up for approved partners as well, you would have to decide which partner, and deciding that under pressure is exactly what phishing is built to beat.
One light, one meaning: this came from the system itself. Everything else gets a dark light and the same answer, however official it looks.
If my Bolt password opens everything, isn't that riskier?
It concentrates the risk rather than adding to it. Fifty passwords means fifty chances to reuse one, write one down or type one into the wrong box, and most people lose an account that way rather than to anything clever.
One password means one thing to look after, and we put two more things around it: a checkmark that tells you when a request is really ours, and a key without which a stolen password cannot put your account on a new machine.
Isn't biometric matching more accurate than typing something in?
It is less exact, not more. A password either matches or it does not. A biometric is judged: an algorithm decides whether today's smudge is close enough to the stored one.
Set that threshold tight and it locks you out on a cold morning. Set it loose and it starts letting other people in. There is no setting where it is simply correct, which is what a password already is.
What is the Quick Word for?
Ending a session immediately, in the one case where reporting the laptop is not enough: it was taken while it was open and still signed in.
You set it when you set up your account. Say it at a Lost and Found counter and whatever is running on that laptop stops.
Is it safe to say my Quick Word out loud to a stranger?
Yes, because it cannot do anything except take a session away. It will not sign anybody in, unlock a screen, change a setting or reach a file.
That is why it is a separate thing from your password rather than the same thing used twice. A credential you have to say aloud should not be one that gives anybody access.
What is the difference between my Quick PIN and my password?
The Quick PIN wakes the screen from the screen saver, with everything still open. It only ever unlocks the machine in front of you, which is why a short one is fine.
The password signs you in. If the lid has been closed the session is gone and only the password will start a new one.
Can I give someone my Quick PIN?
Yes, and that is part of why it exists. A housemate, a partner or a colleague can bring the screen back and use what is already open without you handing over the password to your whole account.
Be clear about what you are giving them, though. An unlocked session is your session: your mail, your documents, whatever you had open. The Quick PIN does not hide any of that. What it does is stop the only way of sharing a machine being to share the credential that controls everything.
What happens to a shared Quick PIN when I close the lid?
The session ends and the Quick PIN stops being useful. Whoever you gave it to cannot start a new session, because that takes your password.
So the access you hand over lasts exactly as long as the session does, rather than until you remember to change something.
Does Bolt have a camera cover?
Yes. There is a small physical shutter that slides across the lens.
Software can be told to switch a camera off, and you have to trust that it did. A cover in front of the glass is different: it is a fact you can check by looking, which is the same idea as the trust light beside the power key.
Does the shutter cover the microphones too?
No, and that is worth being clear about. The shutter covers the camera lens only. The microphones are separate and are not blocked by it.
Microphone control is handled in software, which means it carries the same trust question that any software switch does. We would rather say that plainly than let a physical shutter imply more coverage than it has.
Does Bolt have a fingerprint reader or face unlock?
No, and that is a deliberate choice rather than a corner we cut. Bolt has no fingerprint reader, and no built-in face, iris or voice recognition. Signing in to your Bolt means typing a passphrase, which is something you can change.
To be precise about the scope: this is a statement about the laptop, not about the internet. A website or an app you use may still ask for your camera or microphone to run its own identity check. Bolt does not do that, and Bolt cannot stop a site from asking.
Isn't a fingerprint more secure than a password?
It is more convenient, which is not quite the same thing.
A password can be replaced. If one leaks you change it in a minute. You cannot issue yourself a new fingerprint or a new face, so a biometric that is ever compromised is compromised permanently.
And it is not as hard to steal as it sounds. You leave fingerprints on the reader itself and on every glass and door handle you touch, and researchers have been lifting usable prints off ordinary objects and unlocking devices with them for years. Your face is on your ID, on the internet and pointed at cameras all day, and cheaper face unlock has been fooled by a photograph. Nobody can lift a passphrase off a door handle.
Bolt has a hi-res camera. Can it recognize my face?
Bolt itself does not. There is no face recognition in the software system and no face unlock, so the camera is not identifying you when you sign in or at any other time.
A website or an app is a different matter. If you grant one access to the camera, what it does with the image is up to that service. Bolt is planned to ask before any application gets the camera, and there is a physical shutter on the lens for when you want certainty rather than a permission prompt.
Can a website still use biometrics on Bolt?
Potentially, yes. A bank, an exam service or any other site can ask for camera or microphone access and do its own face or voice check in the browser. That is true on any computer with a camera, and Bolt is no different.
What Bolt promises is narrower and, we think, more useful: there is no biometric sensor in the hardware, nothing biometric is used to unlock the machine, and no template of you is stored on the laptop or in your Bolt account. When a site does ask, you can decline it, and you can slide the shutter across the lens.
What is the trust light?
A small checkmark inside a circle, beside the power key. It follows your cursor: lit whenever the cursor is over something that belongs to the machine, dark whenever it is over a web page.
The toolbar, the sidebar, a Bolt dialog, Settings, My Files, the lock screen: all lit. The page itself, and a page filling the screen: dark. Nothing else changes it.
Look before you click. A web page can draw a box that looks exactly like a system password prompt, and on most computers there is no way to tell by looking. Here you do not have to tell by looking. Move the cursor to the button you were about to press and glance down: if the checkmark is out, that button belongs to the page.
The light is wired to where the pointer is, not to what any program claims. A site cannot turn it on, because a site is never what the cursor is over when it is on.
Can a website turn the checkmark on?
It is designed so that it cannot. The intent is to drive the checkmark from the system itself, in a layer a web page has no access to, rather than from ordinary software.
We are not claiming Bolt cannot be attacked, and we will publish how the checkmark is wired before Bolt ships rather than asking you to take the claim on faith. What we will say plainly is that it only helps if you look at it.
The checkmark is lit but I wasn't expecting to be asked. What now?
Cancel it. The checkmark tells you the request came from Bolt; it does not tell you the request is one you asked for. Anything you did not trigger is worth refusing whether or not the checkmark is lit.
Is a Quick PIN not weaker than a password?
On its own, yes, which is why it only ever does one job: lifting the screen lock on a session that is already signed in. A Quick PIN cannot be used at the sign-in screen and it is not a way into your account.
It also cannot outlive the situation it is for. Anyone carrying a locked Bolt away has to close the lid to move it, and closing the lid ends the session and asks for your screen name and password again.
Why does the key matter, when my password is already private?
Because a Bolt password works from anywhere. That is the difference between it and the password on an ordinary laptop, where somebody who learns it still has to be standing at your desk.
Registering your own Bolts puts that back. Somebody who steals your password is, by definition, on a machine that is not yours, so the password on its own gets them nothing. The key is the piece you have that they do not.
It is not your phone, so there is no number to hijack, nothing to change when you switch carrier, and no trail of one-time codes in your messages.
Do I need a key to set up my Bolt?
Not for your first one. It registers itself to your account the first time you sign in, with your screen name and a password.
Every Bolt after that does need the key, whether it is a second one of your own or somebody else's. Plugging the key in is what authorizes a new machine.
Can anyone report my Bolt stolen?
Yes, by entering the owner's screen name. We do not check who is asking, because the lock only ever points at the registered owner and there is nothing to be gained by doing it to somebody else.
It does not interrupt anything in progress. What it does is stop the machine accepting a new sign-in until the owner tells us it is back.
Anything we have not settled yet is marked to be announced rather than guessed at. If your question is not here, write to us and we will answer it honestly, including when the answer is we don't know yet.
Coming soon
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