Orbitkey promises to “revolutionise” key carrying. That’s a bit hyperbolic, but it is a solid key organiser as long as you don’t carry particularly large keys.
A few months ago I wrote up a piece on successful Australian Kickstarter projects, including the Orbitkey key organiser. As a result of that piece, OrbitKey sent me an OrbitKey to review.
Yes, folks, it’s all about ethics in key journalism. Nobody saw that coming, right?
In any case, the Orbitkey’s promise is that it’s a slim key organiser, available in either a leather finish or a TPU Elastomer rubber. The leather versions of the Orbitkey cost $39.95, while the TPU style costs $29.95.I opted for the TPU variant, partly because it’s more colourful, and partly because I figured my cats or kids would probably shred anything made out of actual leather. So far after more than a month’s jumbling around in pockets, bags and buried intermittently on my desk, it’s surviving quite well.
There’s not too much to say about the Orbitkey’s essential construction, because it really just a loop of material with a screw at one end that acts as the thread along which you organise your keys. Orbitkey also sells a key-shaped USB drive if you need one, although they’re hardly unique to Orbitkey itself. The screw and screw head are light aluminium, which means low carrying weight, but also relative fragility. If you really do knock your keys around a lot, I could this being an issue, and it also means they’re pretty easy to drop when you’re threading keys onto the OrbitKey itself.
There’s also an optional steel loop that can be used to attach other keyrings or keys to, and this highlights my one real issue with the Orbitkey. While it’s very good at organising smaller keys, it struggles with larger key heads, most notably car keys. Neither of my car keys fit on the Orbitkey in any way at all, so I’ve got them sitting on the external loop. It’s still better organised, but it’s not as compact as it could be. That’s partly down to the size of the keys themselves, but also the thickness of the Orbitkey screw and expansion possibility of the loop. Possibly a “large” model that’s more car key friendly would be a good second generation Orbitkey product.
The other major thing I’ve noticed about the Orbitkey since using it is that it seriously silences the keys that are on it. For most people that’s probably a plus, to be fair. In my case I really noticed it because I tend to use the sound of jangling keys to stop one of my cats trying to escape. She hates the noise of jangling keys, but thanks to the Orbitkey, my keys are now silent. Not that I think the Orbitkey people are in collusion with my cat, but you never know.
There’s little doubting that the Orbitkey sits in the “cool gadget” column more than anything else. A regular old keychain will still keep your keys, but it’ll keep them jangly and tangled where the Orbitkey does do a solid job of organising them quietly into place.