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Hot diggity that's a sweet machine- keys for car and cdr! I want one really badly, but I know it'll just sit in a drawer, because 90s tech just isn't gonna hold up for practical use.


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Crazy idea – what if we just got back to physical keys for car?

Simple, cheap, ecological, durable – what's not to love?


Back in the 1990's we used to call things like that "license keys".

Yep. I’ve still got one. Those keys were quite usable. Sigh.

Yea I'd like to grab one literally to copy my garage keycard at work. I always forget and have to pay ridiculous rates in the city...

I have one of the old blue keys. Never found a good use for it. I don't have my keys with me at my desk, so I never put it on my keychain. So then it's just laying around and gets shuffled of the desk and into a drawer.

Meanwhile, my phone is always near and bitwarden just works.


Not to mention the fact that there are many mundane tools that could be used to copy car keys, from the archaic hammer/forge to the modern camera/CNC mill.

I still keep my decade old beater around, and even that thing isn't susceptible to someone making a new key at Home Depot.

Regular people have been carrying house keys and/or car keys around for practically their entire lives. A physical key for their computers wouldn't be weird, except it's different than what they're used to.

> Can it go out, or is it irreplaceable and belongs to something that matters?

I wonder if there is such a thing as digitizing said keys? Like maybe a 3d scanner could archive it incase you find a mysterious locked box later?


Newer car keys have a RFID so that you can't just copy the physical pattern.

A physical key ;) like we used to have.

Would you really be wanting to keep something with that form-factor on your keyring?

Not to mention just 3D printing the key.

I still have my keyfob somewhere, first thing I thought of as well.

They got rid of keys a couple years ago. Now they have blueprints instead.

In my experience, those keys are usually made of incredibly cheap metal.

Please yes. Traditional keys fit on my keyring, can survive the clothes washer, don't unlock doors by accident, can open a car with a dead battery, don't have their own battery issues, and can be brought into restricted work environments where radio transmitters are banned.

I want key holes in all doors. I want to insert a key to start the car.


Before luddites get in arms about "This would never happen with normal keys" ... Nothing stopping someone from making a copy of the keys _after renting the car_ and coming back later to use them.

it could still work as a key :>
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