It’s not often we see a device that promises to be all things to all people, but the GOkey seems to be just such a device. It incorporates a portable battery charger, USB cable, flash drive and a keyring, all in one device, instead of a few different things cluttering up your bag.
The GOkey’s functions include:
- Enough power on the go to power a smartphone for a few hours in an emergency situation
- A charging and data cable — charge off a USB socket, or move some files around
- A flash drive built in, in 8, 16 or 32GB variants
- A Bluetooth-enabled locator allowing you to find keys or whatever your GOkey is attached to.
It all sounds too good to be true, and of course something tries to be many things often excels at none. The GOkey’s battery is only 400mAh, so while it’ll give you a quick charge, it’s not much of one. We also don’t know the output rate, so the thirstier devices might not receive much of a charge.
The locator feature, while sounding cool, isn’t too intuitive. Like other Bluetooth beacons, the locator app is able to tell you (roughly) how far away you are from the GOkey, it can’t really tell you which direction it’s in, leaving this up to the user to try and figure out. When you’re near enough, you can trigger an audio alarm though, which should help. The team behind GOkey is likely to include a GPS locator in the device if they reach their $500,000 stretch goal.
As at today, they’re just shy of $470,000, so it looks as if this goal will soon be reached. Are you interested in a GOkey? Check out the video below, and the source link below if you’re interested in getting one.
I recently bought a TrackR which uses Bluetooth to find it. It’s an absolute waste of money. As Bluetooth operates in a 10m range you can only find something if you’re already standing next to it! What’s the use of that?