Smart gun will put fingerprint, facial recognition technology to work
A smart gun developed by Biofire will soon start shipping to customers that pre-ordered the firearm.
The Biofire Smart Gun features built-in fingerprint and infrared facial recognition technology that only permits use by "authorized" individuals, according to the company.
Biofire has called it the "first and only biometric firearm on the market."
The gun is a full-sized 9mm, striker-fired semiautomatic pistol. It features magazine sizes of 10 and a double-stacked 15-round magazine. It has a 4.7-inch barrel and a total of 8.7 inches in length. The total weight of the gun, unloaded, is 2.4 pounds.
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"We’re actually going to be shipping the first smart guns here within the next few weeks to early customers, and that’s a huge milestone for us," CEO Kai Kloepfer told host Maria Bartiromo on "Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street" late last week. "We’re excited to get to work at fulfilling this full backlog now that we’re fully into production."
Biofire told FOX Business on Tuesday "wider shipments will be fulfilled throughout the remainder of the year with volume expected to continue to ramp as Biofire continues to build up production capabilities."
The company first revealed its 9mm Biofire Smart Gun about a year ago.
Kloepfer told Bartiromo last week that Biofire has "found that many gun owners are struggling with the challenges of wanting to make sure they appropriately and safely secure their firearm, ensuring their children don’t get access to it, but also have access to that in the very, very few short seconds that they might need to get access to it in some sort of home defense emergency." With its smart gun geared toward home defense, Biofire is looking to help solve that, he said.
Biofire’s smart gun only unlocks and becomes usable when it recognizes the biometric data of an "authorized" user holding it, according to the company’s website. At all other times, it automatically stays locked.
The gun also features electronic fire-control technology.
Biofire started fielding pre-orders for it in April of last year and, according to Kloepfer, has racked up "thousands" since then. It and its smart dock currently have a $1,499 price tag.
The company website on Wednesday afternoon listed the "launch edition" of the Biofire Smart Gun as sold out. Meanwhile, orders for Batch 4 will get filled and sent to customers in early 2025, according to the site.
FINGERPRINT-ACTIVATED 9MM HANDGUN COMING TO MARKET
The Biofire smart gun and its technology have been in the works for quite some time.
Kloepfer told Bartiromo his smart gun efforts started as a high school science fair project over a dozen years ago. Biofire itself was formed in 2016.
Past smart gun initiatives by companies like Colt and Armatix did not pan out as intended, per the Wall Street Journal. That was reportedly due to skepticism, opposition and other factors.
During his "Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street" appearance, Kloepfer said Biofire has "many, many patents that have been filed and issued and fundamentally approaches this in a very different way that allows us to actually produce a reliable high quality product that gun owners like myself can trust with the safety of themselves and their families."
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In 2023, the share of U.S. adults who reported owning a gun themselves or residing with someone else who did was 42%, according to a Pew Research Center survey.