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Overview

I've noticed myself being less intentional with my wallet-carrying system of late. At one time, I had three different pouches I had to put into my pocket each time I headed out; my NOMAD Shell Cordovan Wallet, Porter Key Pouch, and Japanese Coin Organizer.

Having more pouches gave the illusion of being more organized, but really, there were a lot of redundancies and I get a mini heart attack each time I pat my pockets and feel that it is not as stuffed as it should be.

After a few weeks of trial and error, I ended up with a very affordable handmade Dyneema L-zip wallet from Mercari shops. The wallet holds my bills, coins, lobby gate chip, house key, and three cards– two credit cards, and a tracking card.

A few things I did to make this happen were

  • Have my coupons in my car since I drive exclusively to those places
  • Have my driver's license in my car since the only time I would ever need it was if I got pulled over
  • Skipped the coin organizer. The only time I use coins is at the supermarket that only accepts cash and the vending machine at the ramen restaurant. The supermarket had this machine where you could dump coins down a slot, and I would just dump everything in before using bills so I don't have to pick individual coins out of the wallet.

This was a vast improvement from before since everything was held in a slim package—except for my car fob. It was huge and bulky. I tried having it in the wallet for a while and I was able to use it by pressing the buttons through the material. But it just made my wallet so bulky and packed that I had to take it out each time to reach the insides.

I was trying to find a way to lock my car with my phone but all the automated key systems I found online seemed so sketchy. Until I saw the daimi Car Key ONE. I got to say they did a great job in looking legit and presentable with their website that I knew that I was onto something.

Unlike some solutions that require connecting to your car systems or even wiring, the daimi Car Key ONE works in a deceivingly simple way. It is essentially a sophisticated button pusher. It lets you place your key in it and press down on the lock or unlock button, controlled by the app. Pretty ingenious if you ask me.

If, like me, you are skeptical, then this review is for you. I use the Jan 2024 released version of the daimi Car Key ONE daily and here is what I love (and all the quirks) about it.

Style

The founder of daimi also owns Edelkrone, a series of innovative camera accessories. From the site design, I could tell design was a focus for daimi. And this translates to the actual product.

The Car Key ONE was entirely black, which matches the interiors of most cars, and mine. The branding is very subtle, with an indented daimi logo on the top. The aesthetics probably wouldn't matter as much since you will probably stash it away in a closed compartment in your car, but it helps that it looks very sleek.

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It came in a reasonably small package and fits nicely in one hand. I have mine in the passenger-side storage compartment since I didn't have any spare closed compartments available. This was Japan, so I felt relatively safe from break-ins. It wasn't easy to make out what the Car Key ONE was peering through my car's tinted windows anyway.

There were small misalignments between parts that brought my impression of quality down, but the sturdy materials and sleek design helped offset that feeling.

Parts are difficult to align.

While I curate my belongings to only retain the most beautiful, I'll have to say that it is secondary for this product. There aren't many similar products on the market to begin with. It does help that the Car Key ONE looks as sleek as it is.

Usage

For something meant to work in the background, the only thing you need to know is how well it works. I use it every single day and this is how it went down.

Before you buy

It is important to make sure that you can use the Car Key ONE in the first place. Since you will have it in your car and it essentially pushes buttons on your key fob while it is in your car.

You have to make sure that

  • You can lock or unlock your car while you are in it
  • The lock and unlock button on your car key is on the flat side of the fob and not the side. Else, the Car Key ONE won't be able to press it well
  • You can start or stop your car without the key, by pressing a button. This is technically optional because you can easily remove the key from the Car Key ONE, but it can be a hassle.

My Honda Nbox fulfilled these conditions. However, I only realized later that my fob had to be near the ignition to start the car. I've always had my fob on me so I never thought that this was needed. Moving my Car Key ONE to a compartment near the ignition helped me get around this.

The package comes with a loop that you can attach to your fob, so you can take it in and out of the device easily. Thanks to the magnetic attachment, I found it quite easy to remove the fob by pulling on the loop, but not quite so without it.

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I found a 100 year old company that would create these heirloom quality canisters for me. They are handmade and will keep your tea leaves, coffee beans or anything that you need dry for years to come.

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Since I never take it out, I opted not to put the loop on.

Setup

The whole idea of the Car Key ONE is that it presses your car key for you; a literal button pusher. As such, it has to press exactly on the position of the lock and unlock button.

To do so, some setup is needed to align the pushing sticks to the button positions.

The package comes with some allen keys to separate the device into three parts.

The base plate is where you place your car fob. More specifically, you attach your car fob to a magnet with self-adhesive tape and place it in a groove in the base plate according to some markers. The package comes with two of these magnets in case you have two fobs for some reason or need a replacement.

This isn't enough to get the buttons perfectly aligned. Once you place the top housing back, you have to use allen keys to move the, let's call them pushing sticks, to the top of the buttons. This is probably the trickiest part of the setup since you have to look through the sticks to see the buttons and I found this nearly impossible to do.

I adjust them the best I can and activate them to see which part of the key fob they are pressing on the get the perfect position.

Locking and unlocking

The setup with the app was very straightforward.

You can add lock and unlock actions on iOS shortcuts, which lets me perform the actions through icons on my home screen. It takes about 3 seconds from the time the button is pressed to the actual unlock, unlike using the fob which is usually instant.

You can set it to auto-unlock based on proximity. Usually, my Honda car automatically the moment I pull the door handle when the fob is on me, and losing this convenience would be a dealbreaker. You can set the distance to be near, medium, or far.

As I am often in the gym or restaurants where the car is right out the window, I went with the near setting. On most days, it unlocks when I am about 2 meters away from the car and my hand would reach the handle just as it unlocks. There was once or twice when it started to unlock as I came right next to it.

While you will feel some difference from a native auto-unlocking system, I still find the entire experience to be pretty magical and seamless.

It is supposed to lock your car as get further for it. I tried walking away from it a few times but it doesn't seem to lock on its own. I then get worried and lock it manually.

There will be times when it won't work.

There have been once or twice out of the hundreds of times that this didn't work. Your app needs to be open for this to work, so if you close the app or turn off and on your bluetooth, it won't work.

There was a single time that I wasn't able to unlock the car. I imagine this could be life or death if you live somewhere that is freezing and getting stuck outside your car could be deadly. So, once is one too many.

This could also happen if the Car Key ONE‘s batteries run out. You will receive a notification on your phone when the battery level drops below 20%, and an email notification at 10%. Suffice it to say, if you let this happen, it's on you.

I would prefer if there is a way to charge the device rather than use AA batteries. It would work perfectly with my solar setup with the Nitecore FSP30.

While it works 99% of the time, that 1% is enough for me to recommend having a backup with you at all times. For that reason, I keep the physical key in my above-mentioned wallet.

Conclusion

The daimi Car Key ONE is an ingenious invention that works with a wide variety of cars. The experience is auto-magical and seamless but not 100% foolproof. For anyone who wants to reduce bulk in their wallet, the daimi Car Key ONE is the way to go although I recommend having a backup key with you at all times.

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