The Vault Dial: a combination on a vault door

A bank vault on your lock screen

The Vault Dial turns a 4-digit passcode on four rings set in a vault door, and you can choose from seven door finishes.

Picture the round steel door at the back of an old bank, with its rings of engraved numbers and a heavy handle. Each ring holds one digit of your code. Set the first ring to the first digit, the second to the second, and so on round the door, then throw the handle. Same four digits you would tap on a keypad, set into steel you can turn.

The rings give nothing away as you turn them. Every stop clicks the same, right or wrong, and only the whole combination is judged. That is on purpose: a ring that clicked differently on the right digit would let a stranger find your code one ring at a time.

The finishes

You choose the vault door’s finish on the Vault Dial’s page of the lock screen gallery, and while the dial is your lock screen a Vault Door row in Settings changes it too. A finish changes the look of the door and its dial, and nothing about the lock. Choose the one you will be glad to see each morning. If the dial is already your lock screen, the button on its page reads Use This Door, and only the door changes.

Four rings, four digits

The rings are the charm and the limit. Four rings take a four-digit code, and nothing longer.

A four-digit code has ten thousand values. What stands between a stranger and all of them is the wait after each wrong try. At that pace, trying every possible 4-digit passcode takes about 14 months. The guessing guide shows how that compares with six digits.

That is slow for someone guessing blind. It does nothing against someone who watched your hand turn the rings once. If you are often in crowded places, a style with six digits gives a watcher more to remember. The Padlock and Three Turns both take six.

Turning it on

1. Check that your passcode is four digits. If it is longer, change it first, while the vault is open. While your vault is open, Settings, then Passcode & Unlock, then Change Passcode lets you choose a new passcode. The screen asks for the new passcode twice and does not ask for the old one.
2. Open Settings, then Passcode & Unlock, and tap Lock Screen. The Vault Dial has its own page there.
3. Turn the rings with a made-up code until the clicks feel familiar. Nothing you try there is saved or counted.
4. Pick a door finish, then tap Use This Lock Screen.

Your face, and the keypad

The door waits for your hand. It doesn’t ask for your face the moment it appears, and the button to use your face stays one tap away. If you want the face as a second step after the combination, see Dual Lock.

A Use Keypad button sits under the door too. A Dial Only switch in Settings, under Passcode & Unlock, takes it away, so the rings are the only way to type the code.

Where Sealed helps, and where it doesn’t

It helps turn a short code into a small ritual, on a lock screen that looks like what it guards. The Vault Dial turns a 4-digit passcode on four rings set in a vault door, and you can choose from seven door finishes.

It doesn’t do these things:

• Make four digits worth more. Every lock screen style is another way to enter your passcode, so it changes how you enter it and not how many combinations it has.
• Take a six- or nine-digit code. See the lock screen styles for the ones that do.
• Shield the rings from a watcher. Someone who saw the combination can turn it too. Break-in alerts only react to wrong tries.
• Come with the free plan. Vault Dial and Padlock let you open your vault by turning a combination, and they are part of Sealed Pro.