This thought-provoking article from the BBC News Magazine has been published yesterday:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29817520
It argues that since cars are increasingly turning to keyless systems, perhaps we will eventually also replace our metal house keys with keyless systems. A keyless system is certainly not a precise description, in the case of cars it means having a keyfob in your pocket which the car is able to sense when you are close-by. It then unlocks itself and gets ready to start the engine, meaning that the driver no longer needs to insert a key or push a button on the keyfob. In the case of hotels, hospitals and schools metal keys are being replaced with electronic keycards, or even with fingerprint or iris scanners.
The article then goes on to present the counter argument, which is that most people feel that their house keys as far too important to entrust to new types of technology which might go wrong. Metal keys have been around for centuries and are reliable, so why replace them?
So, will this eventually mean lettings agents and estate agents no longer have to look after keys? Would a system like Keyzapp that helps speed up the time consuming processes involved in managing the keys become redundant?
Well, as the article points out, nothing is going to change quickly when it comes to house keys, so we can expect our customers to have to look after multiple metal keys for many years to come. Even if metal keys are replaced, an electronic keyfob or keycard is still required, so lettings agents and estate agents would still have to look after the electronic keyfobs in a similar way to the current metal keys. We will be keeping an eye on the development of these electronic keyfobs, as they use similar technology to the ‘tap or scan’ technology used by Keyzapp. In the future we may be able to combine the key and the details currently held on Keyzapp keyfobs into one single keyfob.
The article also presents some interesting ideas around using new technologies to allow the right people into the right house but only at pre-agreed times. This means a central system is able to program the lock, and then each person allowed into the house has their own unique identifying key. This could be really useful for contractors going to rental properties, and it would mean that having a central system that knows about all contractors, issues them with ID tokens, and also keeps track of when they will need access to which property would be crucial. Keyzapp already handles these aspects, so perhaps the Keyzapp of the future will stop managing the keys and instead start managing the locks!