Overview

With a black aluminum body and swivel mechanism, the Thetis BLE FIDO2 Security Key stands out from the crowd, not only in form factor, but in size. It’s a plastic body in thumb drive style, which is protected with the aluminum outer body. The top of the key is equipped with a button that is used for presence detection, and that button also has a blue LED light embedded within it. The top of the key has the standard notch necessary to attach it to a keychain.

Compared to the other thumb drive style key in this test, and to most of the other keys, this one has a lot of bulk to it – both due to the thickness of the aluminum outer body, but also the inner key itself. The reason, though, is because this is one of the few keys to support Bluetooth; the key has a battery within it.

Available Features And Management

The Thetis key supports FIDO2 as well as FIDO U2F, and with associated Thetis Key Manager software can provide HOTP and TOTP. The key can be reset, and the PIN changed within the software as well.

As noted, this is one of the few keys that provides Bluetooth for FIDO2.

FIPS 140 Availability

Thetis does not produce a FIPS 140 variant of this key.

Enrollment And Usage

Enrolling the Thetis key through either Bluetooth or USB worked the first time. Pairing of the key could have been slightly improved, because the device presents itself with its serial number when trying to pair it; it would stand out more if it prefaced itself with something like Thetis.

Aside from the initial pairing confusion, using the Thetis key via Bluetooth was easy, you just press the button on the top of it to turn it on. I also appreciate that if you insert it into another computer via USB, it turns off Bluetooth.

Obviously the one downside to Bluetooth is that you need to sign into the device to be able to initially pair, so for a workforce moving between devices frequently, they’ll have to either use USB or another mechanism for that initial authentication.

The key worked consistently after enrollment without issue.

The key was factory reset without issue.