Losing Keys

There is nothing as infuriating as going to grab your keys from where you thought you just left them only to discover they are not there.

Nothing that is, until you start a search for said keys that turns into a massive house-wide exploration that turns up not a single shiny key!

If this describes one of your days, then take comfort in knowing you are not alone. The same thing happens to thousands of people every day. This article takes a look at this age old problem and offers some helpful solutions.

Artificial Intelligence

It's as if those pesky keys had developed an intelligence all of their own and had gone and deliberately hidden themselves from your sight. Worse, they'd managed to conceive such a clever hiding place that you'd never find them no matter how hard you looked.

While you know as well as I do that inanimate objects don't really possess any kind of artificial intelligence, the thought does cross your mind from time to time, I'm sure. So how do those jangly little metallic critters manage to give us the slip in such a convincing manner?

The blame, unfortunately, tends to lie in the direction of the key's owners for placing them in a different place than intended. Occasionally a family member might pick them up and move them to a different location. In a few rarer cases, the family pet might grab them and take their prize to the doggy bed or drop them in the cat litter.

Finding Misplaced Keys

I have switched from using the term "lost" to "misplaced" here, because that's what most often really happens. We think we put them down in one place when we really put them down in another and forgot where that "other" place was.

But a solution is to hand in the shape of a very clever (in its simplicity) device that can route out those carefully camouflaged miscreants in a jiffy at the click of a button. The device is a simple electronic key finder gadget that operates in two parts: a handheld transmitter and a small receiver attached to the aforementioned keys, usually via their key ring.

You can read more about them in that link as well as source one or two pretty good examples of the devices that are on sale online. There is no secret about the workings, which are pretty simple in that the transmitter sends out a weak wireless signal that is picked up by the receiver when it is in range, whereby it emits an audible beep and voila! Lost keys are no longer lost!

Other Applications

This kind of key locator is not just for finding lost keys. They often come in packs with a single multi-button transmitter that can activate each of several receivers. That makes them perfect for attaching to TV remotes, wallets, cell phones, in fact just about anything you have a tendency to put down and forget where that somewhere" was!

Ah yes, the TV remote is a favorite - disappearing down the side of a sofa or chair but which one? Beep! That one! Ready to go out to a nice restaurant but can't find where you left your all-important wallet? Beep! Aha, there it is!

Simple, effective and multi-tasking, how did you ever exist without one?