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KeyMe: An Interstitial Take on Digital Keys

By Rain Noe - August 27, 2013

in Object Culture

Speaking of keys, you needn't look further than modern-day car key fobs to see what's coming. But until that day arrives, here's an odd interstitial technology hovering between the incumbency of metal keys and the inevitable adoption of wireless unlocking devices.

KeyMe is a smartphone app that allows users to "store, share, and duplicate their physical keys using a digital scan that is securely stored in the cloud." By using the camera on your phone, you can scan your keys. Should you need to make copies of them, the app translates your keys' dimensions into something a keymaker can reproduce.

The idea seems clever enough (assuming you haven't misplaced your phone along with your keys), but what surprised me is that the New-York-based company has ponied up for physical kiosks, scattering five of them around Manhattan.

At first, that made no sense to me: The kiosks charge a whopping $20 for a key, whereas I can get a copy for a couple of bucks at a local hardware store. Then I looked at where they're placing the kiosks. By having them exclusively within 7-11s, they're clearly going after the 24-hour drunken partygoer market. When you've had too much Patrón and can't get back into your house, $20 will seem like a steal compared to the three-figure quote that a 24-hour locksmith will give you.

I do foresee one potential hurdle. This is anecdotal, but in my experience people lose their phone a lot more than they do their keys. So I hope that keys and phones not only soon converge, but are somehow designed not to be lost.

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Greg

11 years ago

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Nice idea...doubt this would ever actually work
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Matt

11 years ago

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Or much better when wanna-be thieves start taking pictures of other keys and getting them cut at the kiosks. The writing has been on the wall for a while, but this looks like the beginning of the end for keys as we know them.
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Toby

11 years ago

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Well, there are only a few positions per cylinder (see the "bitting code" in the app screenshot). I would say it's analogous to OCRing scanned text - yes, bad images will mean mistakes, but with good images, you get usable results. It may well be they analyze the images for camera shake, etc., and refuse to process orders if they are blurry or dark.
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Eric

11 years ago

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OMG, you have got to be kidding! duplicating a key from a photograph, oh all the pitfalls, lighting, shaky hand, wrong key, bad cell phone, low megapixel sensor, holding the phone to far away from the key, a dirty lens, I could go on and on....dumb, must be a gag, there is just no way this can be real?!
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