FŪZ Designs, who is behind the expensive but intuitive Everdock universal dock, has come up with another very interesting product called the Noke, which is a key-less lock. According to FŪZ Designs, lock’s have for quiet some time now needed to be dragged into the 21st century and since no one else decided to update them, they will happily pick up the slacks. Like any other product that some one has tried to sell since the dawn of time, FŪZ Designs introduces their product by showing what’s wrong with the way things are currently being done. They throw a lot of what if scenarios at potential buyers such as: What if you lose your key? What if you needed to lend your only key to your unreliable knucklehead of a friend? Or maybe you’re just tired of spending too much time fumbling around with your combination lock. If you thought about things such as these and own a modern smartphone, maybe the Noke could help.
If you haven’t already figured it out, the name Noke, which FŪZ Designs likes to point out, is just a simple shortening of the phrase “no key”. I mentioned earlier that users would need a smartphone to take advantage of the Noke lock. This is because the Noke utilizes BLE technology. The device works by a user pushing down on the shackle of the Noke which will automatically prompts it to start looking for a bluetooth enabled Android or IOS device with the compatible key and once it makes the connection will become unlocked. This seems like an ingenious idea.
Ah, the cell phone, a device that has seemingly become the extension of the human anatomy over the years. This normally means that they are always working pretty hard thus, by the end of the day, they are either running low on a charge or dead. FŪZ Designs has of course foreseen this problem and has included a way to unlock the device without using the phone. This is done by way of a user defined series of short and long pushes on the shackle to unlock the Noke. Well, it seems that we are back to the trusty old combination lock, eh FŪZ?
Though I will admit to being impressed by this it seems it will take far more people to be far more enamored with the device than I in order for it to come to market. FŪZ Designs has placed the product on Kickstarter with the goal of achieving $100,000 in order to pay for tooling, raw materials and production. Though the Noke is a very interesting product, the idea is not unique. A similar product, the Teo padlock, also failed to garner enough funding via Kickstarter. The Noke has only garnered $4,181 with only a month remaining on Kickstarter. The Noke is also a fairly expensive padlock, coming in at $89. It doesn’t sound too good for the Noke at this point in time. However, FŪZ Designs has stated that if you pledge now, the device could be yours for $59 and will ship by February of next year. To me, this still sounds a bit expensive for a lock, though it is a nice idea. What do you guys think?