Innovation project

A high security smart lock for Prosegur's cash devices

An automatic smart lock that lets a phone open a safe with no batteries, no keypads and no traditional keys: the winning entry of the cash management challenge in Come In, Prosegur's open innovation programme, piloted on Cash Today devices.

Open innovation winner
Keyless randomised lock
Joint pilot with Prosegur
Field tested in Argentina

Client: Prosegur
Sector: Cash management
Stage: Innovation pilot
Location: Argentina
Key delivery: Bluetooth Low Energy
Hardware: Smart lock retrofit

The programme

Come In: one challenge among five

In March 2020 Prosegur launched Come In, its first open innovation programme, with five challenges, one per business area. The cash management challenge, presented by Prosegur Cash, asked for ways to handle physical money more efficiently.

The winning proposal went after the most physical part of the problem, the lock on the safe: a smart lock a phone talks to directly, with no batteries, keypads or traditional keys on the door.

Before and after

Opening a safe at a service point

The industry pattern: A central station dictates the code over the phoneNeeds mobile coverageStaffed central, 24 hVoice call to verify
The pilot: The courier app hands the lock a single use key over Bluetooth Low EnergyNo coverage neededNo phone callsNo keypad

The pilot

What was built for the pilot

After the award, the idea had to become hardware Prosegur could test. The sheet below redraws the main pieces of the pilot as line figures: the randomised lock, the authorisation flow that hands it a single use key, the retrofit that put custom electronics inside a proven lock, the audit trail every device reports, and the Cash Today device that carried it into the field.

Smart lock pilot · Principal figuresSHEET PL-01 · REV A · STYLIZED

LCK

Randomised opening

FIG. 01

No fixed combination lives on the door. Openings rely on randomised codes, so there is no permanent secret to manage, copy or share.

HIGH SECURITY · RANDOMISED · NO FIXED SECRET

AUT

One key per collection

FIG. 02

An authenticated service checks that the person at the safe is responsible for that collection at that moment, then hands the lock a single use key over Bluetooth Low Energy.

AUTHENTICATED SERVICE · ONE-TIME KEY · BLE

RTF

A proven lock, retrofitted

FIG. 03

No reinvented mechanics: an existing high security lock was retrofitted with purpose-built electronics and firmware, bringing a proven mechanism under connected control.

HARDWARE CONSULTANCY · CUSTOM ELECTRONICS · BLE FIRMWARE

AUD

An audited trail of openings

FIG. 04

Each opening leaves a record: which device, when, and the closing that follows. An audit trail replaces the anonymous turn of a key.

DEVICE · TIMESTAMP · EVENT TYPE · FULL HISTORY

DEV

The connected cash device

FIG. 05

The lock was designed for Prosegur's Cash Today cash management devices, and that is where the pilot put it to work, each unit reporting as a connected device.

CASH TODAY · CONNECTED DEVICE · LIVE STATE

PLT

The pilot in Argentina

FIG. 06

The award turned into a joint pilot programme between Prosegur and the startup, with the final testing phase of the solution carried out in Argentina.

JOINT PILOT · FINAL TESTING · ARGENTINA

Project results

What came out of the programme

Five startups won their categories in the first edition of Come In, and the cash management challenge went to the smart lock proposal by Thinger.io.

The pilot covered the whole chain: retrofit electronics for an existing high security lock, the BLE firmware, a mobile app wired into the cash delivery and collection workflow, and the service that authorizes each opening with a single use key.

The programme

Come In, first edition

Mar 2020
Prosegur launches Come In: 190 startups from 33 countries answer five challenges
Oct 2020
The smart lock wins the cash management category
Category winner
Pilot
A joint pilot with Prosegur, with the final testing phase in Argentina
In Prosegur’s words
A high security smart randomised lock for its Cash Today devices

Dates and figures as published by Prosegur; see the references below.

Under the hood

The platform behind the pilot

Behind the pilot sits Thinger.io. Each retrofitted lock is a device with its own identity: the authenticated service validates who may open which safe and when, state changes arrive as events, and dashboards let the pilot team follow every unit remotely.

Around the platform, Thinger.io delivered the hardware consultancy, custom electronics, BLE firmware and mobile app: platform plus end to end engineering, within an innovation programme's timeframe.

A retrofitted smart randomised lock on each Cash Today pilot device, opened by a courier app that hands it a single use key over Bluetooth Low Energy, reports its state events to the Thinger.io platform, where dashboards and the audit history served the joint Prosegur and Thinger.io pilot team.

References

Prosegur (2022). How Prosegur innovates to remain at the forefront of its sector. Prosegur Innovation. Come In launch, 190 startups from 33 countries, the "high security smart randomised lock" for Cash Today devices and the final testing phase in Argentina. prosegur.com
Interempresas (19 October 2020). Prosegur incorpora soluciones del ecosistema start-up a través de su programa de innovación abierta. The five Come In winners by category, with Thinger.io winning cash management for Prosegur Cash. interempresas.net
Prosegur Innovation. ¿Conoces nuestro programa de innovación? Tres startups cuentan su experiencia. Includes the Thinger.io co-founder quote on the completed pilot, in Spanish in the original. prosegur.com

This page describes a competition win and the pilot that followed, as documented in these references.

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