58 
I’m really sorry suit trouser tracksuit, but there’s only room in my heart for one amazing invention at a time, and you’ve just been replaced by these brilliant Free Key rings that open with a simple press.
I consider myself a fairly dexterous individual, but I’d rather be tasked with finding Atlantis than putting a new key onto a keyring. At least I know I’d be more successful with the former. But I’m fairly confident I could handle the latter with Eric von Schoultz’s Free Key. Its brilliantly simple design just introduces a strategically placed bump in one of the loops, essentially creating a button that can be pressed to open it.
It’s another one of those “why weren’t they designed like this in the first place?” ideas, and the only thing missing is a set of these in my pocket right now. As far as I can tell they will be available for sale at some point, and I’ll be honest, even if they were £50 a pop I’d still eagerly buy one. [Free Key via Notcot]
Nice, simple idea but I just de-keyed instead.
When I started to accumulate keys (car, house, drawer, office etc) I questioned why on earth I was lugging around this expanding lump of metal – most of them are not required most of the time – so I de-keyed and for over 20 years I’ve only carried the keys I need (normally house and car).
Quite, makes the pocket a lot less bulky doing it that way.
…and I’m not so scared when passing by deep water
I got really excited when you said you’d de-keyed, I was expecting (probably slightly unreasonably) that you’d found a way of using your car or locking your house with RFID or biometric sensors or something
Couldn’t the end catch on things, though?
It appears that the end will only pop out when you press on the middle section after the bump, so it uses the leverage to lift the tip. Without that the tip will press against the ring. Like a seesaw.