If you enjoy keeping up with the latest in tech developments, you might have stumbled across the term "smart safe". Of course, these days, we're assured that everything we are buying is, in some way, smart. From water bottles to toothbrushes, everything today boasts about its digital connectivity and convenience. So the idea of a wireless safe isn't exactly too crazy. Of course, every "smart" device is smart in different ways, and to different degrees. So what exactly makes a smart safe, well, smart? And if we're measuring the smartness of safes, which ones come out on top? We'll walk you through everything you need to know about the future of safes, no matter if you're looking to keep documents, heirlooms, or jewelry safe and sound.

To understand what exactly makes your home safe "smart", it's important to have a solid understanding of what makes anything "smart". Most of you probably understand that it has something to do with technology. However, we've used electronic devices for decades without any indication that they were "smart". So what's the difference?

Generally speaking, there are three things that serve to define an object or device as "smart". A smart device needs to be autonomous, aware, and connected. This isn't as technical as it sounds. Autonomy simply means that the device can do what it does without human input, and awareness means that it can understand information about its environment. Connected simply means that the device can communicate with other devices.

Okay, so what does this all mean in practice? Let's take a hypothetical smart safe. If the safe was autonomous and aware, it would be able to detect when it was opened or the lock was broken - even without you telling it to check for this. And if it was connected, it could inform you of it being opened or tampered with by giving you an alert on your smartphone.

So as you can see, there's not really one key "way" for a safe to be smart. As long as it meets the criteria mentioned above, then that safe is pretty clever in our opinion. In order to get a better understanding of modern smart safes, it's good to divide them into types based on their purpose. And generally, those purposes are going to be for professional or personal usage.

If you look up smart safes, there's a decent chance you might find the kinds of devices used by businesses or financial institutions. These kinds of safes are designed for businesses that need to protect a large amount of physical cash, accurately count it, and move it to their bank of choice. These safes have the purpose of handling a lot of cash efficiently and safely.

Of course, banks have never had a monopoly on securing belongings. At some point in history, someone saw one of those big bank vaults and thought "I got to have that in my home… but a little smaller". And in the same way, more people are demanding the best in high-security tech, in an easy-to-use package in their own home.

There is where personal smart safes like our very own iCube come from. Getting a smart safe in your home is easier than you might think - you don't need to let the banks take all the fun! Depending on how much they can store, you might see smart safes also referred to as "smart safe boxes", "smart lockers" or "smart vaults". These are all terms for intelligent versions of the home security classic.

Of course, not all smart safes are created equal. If you're looking to shop for a smart jewelry safe, it's vital that you fully understand the different ways that safes can achieve that every important third part of that holy trinity of smart-ness we mentioned earlier - connectivity.

You might see some home safe boxes that connect with Bluetooth, which is a specific form of short-range wireless communication. Bluetooth has become pretty ubiquitous in a lot of smart devices that don't need a lot of range. A Bluetooth safe won't likely have the full array of options as a wireless safe, such as connecting directly to your phone.

A lot of wireless safes will utilize Wifi, operating like pretty much any wireless device. The connection is established between your safe and phone and you can have the two communicate.

Our advice, however? If you see a safe that's using open Wifi or Bluetooth, it's probably just a toy and not a real smart safe. Both of these methods are very open to tampering. Think - how often have you connected to Bluetooth devices that aren't yours? Have you ever "borrowed" someone's Wifi network? Yeah, we thought so.

At Mycube, we believe that the smartest thing a safe can be is secure. That's why our iCube doesn't use potentially vulnerable methods of connectivity. Rather, it uses its own special and secure Mycube cellular cloud. This means that when it comes to smart safes you can put in your home, there are few more secure than the iCube.

What makes the iCube App really genius, however, is the dedicated iCube App. With this handy App, you can save and manage pictures of anything you put into your safe, letting you keep a running inventory. You can also use the App to give access to the safe to anyone you so choose, making the iCube great for families. You can open the safe remotely with the App, and you can get a message sent right to your smartphone if someone has been tampering with your wireless safe.

So as you can see, we consider our iCube pretty well educated. If you love tech and style, it's the perfect safe to keep your belongings secure. But, of course, make sure to check out everything else our shop has to offer!