Automated Living - Living Without Keys

One of the things that has bugged me for years is that we still use keys to secure our lives. Locks and keys have been around for thousands of years and not much has really changed since. Sure at work we now use RFID passes and maybe even biometric interfaces but not too many people have these for their cars and homes.

Several years ago I decided it was time to live without keys. The first thing I did was remove my house key from my key ring and simply used the garage door to enter and exit my home. The inside garage door is unlocked but house my is protected by an alarm so I'm not too worried about the garage door being an easy access point to my home. Of course this has some risks, like what happens if the power goes off (actually happened :) ). Well to get around this little issue, I simply left a house key in my car as a backup.

So now I was left with just 1 key, my car key. About four years ago I was shopping for a new car. One of the things that affected my decision to buy my car (2008 Nissan Altima Coupe) was the fact that it came with a keyless ignition system (i.e push button start). This I thought would allow me to achieve my goal of living without keys. As soon as I picked up my car I installed a Clifford car alarm which allowed me to get rid of my nissan remote/internal key. I now only had to carry the very small Clifford remote, no keys at all! To make this work, I had to leave the Nissan remote in the car which is a big "no no" because anyone could break in and simply push the button and drive away. Since this is not a web site about automobile security I won't go into the details on how to do this, but I will just say that there are ways around this issue.

Living without keys may not be for everyone however I have successfully lived without keys for over 4 years. So with a bit of effort and backup plans it is possible and will add to your automated living lifestyle.