I love weird gadgets, especially when it comes to security and security related tasks like for example… creating mnemonic seeds in a secure environment. I’ve already wrote in a previous post how to create ‘the ultimate hardware wallet’ which is nothing more than a secure environment with various cryptocurrency tools including mnemonic seed generators, which can help you with every cryptocurrency related job without having to worry about data leakage. And now we have Ellipal Joy, a cool little device from Ellipal.
Ellipal Joy is a dice-like device which has only one purpose, generate a mnemonic seed for you. These seeds can then be imported to the software or hardware wallet of your choice. There’s not much to say here feature wise. Cause Joy is as simplistic as it can be.
One of its 6 sides has the + sign which plays the role of left / previous, another has the – sign which plays the role of right / next, on top their is a circle button which plays the role of enter / confirm, there’s a small screen on the front side, the bottom side has nothing, and the back side has a usb type-c and an on/off button which instantly closes / opens up the device (the boot time is around 3-4 seconds).
Powering on the device will bring up the message “Press OK to generate mnemonics” alongside with the Ellipal logo. Pressing the circle button at the top of the device which plays the role of the confirmation, will proceed you to the next screen in which you’ll get to choose the number of the generated mnemonic seed words. You can choose between 12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 words. Choose one, wait 4 seconds, and there you go, your generated mnemonic seed on the screen. Since this is a very small screen, you only get 4 words per screen, you can use the + and – buttons to proceed to the next / previous 4 words. Pressing the confirmation button while there’s a mnemonic seed on screen, will give you the option to regenerate one. Also, the device shuts itself down after a few seconds of inactivity. And… that’s all. The only thing that is missing from such a device is the option to get the mnemonic seed through a QR Code but believe me when i say that this screen is of such a low resolution, that i’m not even sure if it could provide all the QR Code info of a 24 words mnemonic seed in its screen.
The firmware is open source which you can get from github, check it out, recompile it yourself, and reflash it to the device.
Finally, the usb type-c port is there to provide charging capabilities (the battery is small but will take forever before it needs a recharge) and of course to flash the compiled firmware yourself.
The fact that we’re getting such a tool 13+ years after the first appearance of bitcoin is pretty impressed. There are indeed many better ways to generate mnemonic seeds from complex entropies, but this is the fastest and most simplistic way that we’re going to get, we definitely need more tools like this one.
