My Experience With Keycafe: A Cool Way To Exchange Keys

Put your finger in the dirt down a knuckle or two. If it’s dry , water it.
Easy peasy

$6.95 to pickup a key and 50 cents per day storage? Use it while you can. This is a company that will be dead and gone soon. Nobody is going to pay that.

How does a person have keys to their place that don't work???

$6.95? Pretty sure you can buy a key lockbox that you can secure to your front door (or elsewhere on your property) for less than $10. Give the code to your friend to unlock the box and get to key to get in and voila.

This service seems highly unnecessary and inconvenient.

Public keypad lockers are ubiquitous in Japan, where people use it to exchange items (for sale, to friends, clients, etc).

In the US, its been frowned upon because they can be used to facilitate illicit trade or store explosives (why South Korea doesn't have them in airports or rail stations).

Its a great concept, not having to facilitate times and places to meetup. Should be much more prevalent in the US but authorities nitpick.

Q: Why would anyone pay these rates for an inconvenient service when they could just use a normal lockbox like people have been using forever?

A: When they're Airbnb'ing their place illegally and don't want the neighbors/landlord/condo association to find out.

Make no mistake about the target customer for this service.

roflmao on the key not working 😀

Did you try jiggling it? Sometimes you have to jiggle it.

No, haven't used it but I would. I like the idea. Sorry you went through all that figuring it out then it didn't work.

@Louis - probably a new key that was cut and not tested. Can't count the number of times I've had to return a key to have it cut again ... key cutting, not a perfect science it seems.

I love the service. It's great if you are running an AirBnB set up in an apartment/condo where some of the other readers suggestions like "rocks with hidden key slots" and "put it in the ground" are not feasible.

This is fantastic! A lockbox doesn't work for me living in a tightly managed high rise where I need to leave a key and fob for visitors who often arrive before I am home from work. And there happens to be a location a few blocks from me. Thanks!

Sounds like a really cool scheme, although it's a shame the key didn't actually work in the end!

Why not just get a realtor key lock box? You can find them for < $20 online, and there are versions you can get at your local hardware store too.

"Figuring out how we would exchange keys was logistically tricky."

LOL millennial problems. Flowerpots and doormats just aren't good enough for key storage, so let's just build a business around a problem solved decades ago and try to get VC. ROFL.

@Alvin Seoul Station has public keypad lockers on the opposite side of the station from the airport express, by the exit for metro trains. Quite reasonable rates for storing luggage while in the city for the day, but it'd be expensive to use as a way of exchanging something. Last I was there, it had been fitted to authenticate with fingerprints, but the reader was a bit unreliable, and the receipts had a code to use to unlock in case of problems.

Tried using this service when in Vancouver, Canada last year. Wound up not working to claim key or drop off key. The convenience of this idea was negated by the fact that these are independent of the establishment they are in. They key cafe I visited was in a 7-11 and the people behind the counter could not assist me when the machine malfunctioned. A customer service number on the machine did nothing as well - stressful when you are trying to leave for the airport to make a flight. Airbnb host had to come and drop off key and come pick it up. Luckily, they were local to area.

Kēvo? August? Smart locks have been around for a few years. I just send someone an e-key and they get in with Bluetooth on their phone.