The digital safety box · A Synchronos vertical
HomeDot keeps copies of your family's important papers at your bank or credit union, on a machine that is not on the internet. It opens only with your key and theirs together.
You bring the papers. Staff scan them while you watch. You leave with a printed list of what is in the box, what is missing, and a card of phone numbers you can trust.
No one can change what is in your box without it showing. Every opening is written down, and the record cannot be edited.
For families, through their bank or credit union · Pilots begin 2027
When someone is ill, or gone, or a house floods, a family usually spends weeks looking for documents. HomeDot keeps sealed copies in one place, each with where it came from and the day it arrived.
The printed list shows what is there and what is missing. It does not give advice. It just makes sure you know.
You don't need a will or a lawyer to begin. Bring what is in the drawer: the deed, the insurance papers, the car title, your IDs. That is the first visit.
Each paper is scanned, sealed and dated while you watch. Your originals go back home with you.
No will, no one named to speak for you if you are ill, no beneficiary on a policy. Seeing what is missing is where planning starts.
When you make a will or a plan, bring it in. The new copy is sealed beside the old one, dated, so your family can always see which came last.
A policy renewing, a passport expiring, a will that hasn't been looked at in three years.
The phone numbers you trust, confirmed by you, printed for your wallet and the refrigerator door.
Once a year, at the branch, you go over your list and your numbers with staff.
Before any money moves to a new account: hang up, and call a number on this card.
Confirmed in person · March 2027
Example card. Names and numbers are fictional.
A retired couple, a house paid off, thirty years with the same bank. Here is what reached them in one week. None of it came from who it claimed to be.
Exhibit · one household, one week (illustrative)
| When | Who it said it was | What it asked |
|---|---|---|
| Mon 10:14 | Their grandson, crying, from a police station | $9,000 for bail, in cash, picked up by courier. "Please don't tell Mom." |
| Wed 15:40 | "The bank's fraud department" | Move the savings to a "safe account" today, before the hackers do. |
| Fri 09:02 | A government agency | Back taxes owed, payable in gift cards to avoid arrest. |
The grandson's voice was built from his online videos. The "fraud department" had their real account number from an old data breach. Each call was designed to make them act before they could check.
The callback rule, as printed on the card
No money moves to a new or changed account until someone has hung up, called a number already on the family's list, and heard a person confirm it.
Not the number in the message, and not the number the caller gives. The one written down before today. Your bank will never ask you to move money to keep it safe. No government agency takes gift cards.
The rule is free, with or without HomeDot. HomeDot keeps the list of numbers the rule depends on, checked once a year.
It's free. No one can open a loan or card in your name. You can lift it for a day when you need to.
A fake voice can sound like your grandson. It can't know the word your family chose at the kitchen table.
And don't give your bank login to an app or an AI assistant. The bank can't tell it from you.
After a fire, a flood or an earthquake, families have to prove who they are and what they owned, often with every paper gone.
A video of each room, the deed and the policies are already sealed and dated, so an insurance claim starts from records, not memory.
Copies of your IDs help you replace the originals.
An offline copy is kept outside your area, so a disaster that reaches your home and the branch doesn't reach your papers.
No. It holds copies of papers, not originals, cash or jewelry. And it isn't an online vault: nothing in it can be reached by logging in.
No one, unless you are there with your key. Staff can't open your box alone.
No. A thief with a copy of your deed can't sell your house. A thief with your bank password has your money that minute. HomeDot can keep a note of where your passwords are kept, never the passwords.
The box isn't on the bank's computers or the internet. A breach somewhere else doesn't reach it.
In California, HomeDot follows the steps the law sets for a safe deposit box (Probate Code §331). The person holding your key brings a certified death certificate and an ID to the branch. With staff present, they receive copies of your will or trust and your burial instructions. Everything else waits for your executor.
No. Nothing in your box is used for marketing, and nothing is sold during a HomeDot visit.
You take your sealed box with you.
What HomeDot will not do.
It will not move money, pay a bill, sign anything or call anyone.
It will not give legal, tax or money advice. If something is missing, the list says so.
It will not stop a breach somewhere else. It makes sure your family's papers were never there.
Safe deposit boxes are disappearing, and many branches never had one. HomeDot fits a corner of a branch office, on a machine the institution owns outright.
One sealed machine, a scanner and a printer, two keys and a rule book. No connection to your core or your network. Synchronos installs it, writes the rule book and trains the staff.
About twenty minutes to enroll a family, five minutes a visit after that. Staff scan and seal; they never judge a document.
No cross-selling and no marketing use of anything in a box.
A branch that learns the routine already knows the machine its lending department could use next. Both are ventures of Synchronos.
Intake, the two keys, the log and the seal, practiced on staff volunteers' own papers before any member's.
Chosen with the branch, many with an older parent and an adult child who wants to help. Each leaves with a printed list and a family card.
How many reminders mattered, how many second-key confirmations were asked for, what families found missing, and whether the log held. The numbers belong to the bank or credit union.
Later versions add more: a trusted person who confirms large transfers, sealed packages for insurers and lenders, and in time a smaller box at home.
Everyone building this has worked inside a bank or lent to the families it serves. It is built with a branch, not for one.
A small number of pilots beginning in 2027, one institution at a time. If your bank or credit union would like to talk, write.
eric@synchronos.com