When they can do it with biometrics, I'm a buyer. With RFID I'm not. Now there is a less perfect ring solution, but is ineffective against foresight and intent. You could use a generic magnetic ring rather than RFID to activate a simple reed switch interlock. This would go a long way on the accidental and kid stuff problems for low cost in both production and reliability considerations being such a simple system, but again, a generic magnet provides no safety against intent.
Reed switches aren't much used anymore.
But funny you should mention cheap switches.
I have a Hall effect switch that failed at the house over the weekend that handles a rather critical function.
The system it's attached to is engineered to have a "bypass" mode which gives away the actual reliability of the device and what the engineer making the control panel thought about when using it for something relatively important.
So it's bypassed and will be repaired Wednesday. Life span was about three years in a relatively punishing physical shock environment and let's see here... about 2500 cycles. Had to do the math there on that one. Not very high for a firearm that's fired regularly for training. Maybe fine for a safe-Queen. Physical punishment of this device was much much lower than it would have been subjected to inside the handgrip of a firearm.
I have a pistol that has a magazine drop safety. Designed for a struggle in which the firearm is wrested away from the rightful operator. That's about the pinnacle of safety devices that work today in pistol design.
Those have gone through periods of being liked and disliked by law enforcement and the public, and generally they work. Drop the magazine, the pistol can't fire, even if chambered. Usually don't cause misfires or failure to fires.
Most self defense trainers will point out that getting that close in the first place was the mistake made. Pistols are standoff weapons, by at least a few feet. I put very little value on that particular feature on that pistol. Never had it activate unexpectedly under proper and normal handling. Have heard of a few physically breaking under the physical punishment of firearm recoil and render the pistol inop, but not on a large scale.
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