Other needed improvements with Keyport – ideas…

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Hey everyone,

I posted the problem I was having with Keyport and said that there were some other ideas I wanted to post about how they could improve the device overall. I decided to create a separate thread for these thoughts. Please keep in mind, that what I’m sharing is only to educate fellow members here, allow Keyport to read my input, take it to heart, and hopefully make improvements. I want the product to succeed. So with that, I’ll just dive in and keep it as straight forward as I can.

1) The Keyport bottle opener needs to be redesigned and somehow made a bit larger.

JonSidneyB mentioned in another thread that he thought a bottle opener might be a mistake on this product. Maybe his thinking/reasons is/are different than mine, but I have to say, that I believe Jon was right on the money.

My reason for saying that, is that I bought the bottle opener blade and installed it, but when it was “open” for use, it wouldn’t stay put. I own a SwissChamp XAVT and the bottle opener in that tool is effective. The Keyport, by comparison, is smaller, unstable, and far less effective.

Here is a photo of my SwissChamp XAVT bottle opener which is a bit bigger and effective and more along the lines of what the Keyport bottle opener needs to be:

Now I know that this size of bottle opener is a bit too tall (or wide, rather) to fit into a Keyport, but it’s the size an effective opener needs to be in order to properly grip a bottle cap. So maybe Keyport needs to make the Keyport a bit thicker overall. Here’s a comparison photo of the XAVT opener and an uncut Keyport blade (which is the same width as the bottle opener blade insert). — (Sorry I no longer have the actual Keyport bottle opener anymore):

I tried opening up a bottle of Corona one day and the Keyport bottle opener was so small that I had a lot of trouble getting it to grip the bottle cap properly so that I could pry it open. Part of the problem is that when you press and slide forward the button node to extend the bottle opener, it doesn’t stay locked in place well enough or at all. Cracking open a bottle requires forward pressure (not just upward) in order to create solid contact and pry the cap off. This demands resistance and because the opener doesn’t stay locked in place, the forward pressure causes the opener to want to slide back into the Slide body. This then, demands that you keep finger pressure on the node to keep the opener from sliding closed, but this is awkward and ineffective because opening up a bottle cap requires more ergonomic flexibility of the wrist than what most people realize. And flexing your wrist while trying to keep pressure on the node and this thing in place is an exercise in frustration and/or futility. I’ve cracked open a thousand bottles in my lifetime and using this bottle opener is certainly not as easy as they show in the video.

Did I finally manage cracking open the bottle? Yes, I did, but only after about ten tries and plenty of fumbling with the opener – I’d say, essentially, the same effectiveness as trying to cut something with a dull blade – you manage, but it’s not easy and effective.

Another problem I encountered in using it was that since the opener kept wanting to slide back into the body of the Slide, the metal bottle cap came in contact with the softer plastic on the end of the Slide and as I was trying to pry open the cap, it nicked the plastic and took out a small chunk of it as you can see in the following photo:

As such, I removed the opener and sent it back.

2) Keyport needs to find a way to make the nodes lock better when parked (inserts retracted) and when slid forward (inserts extended), and design a way for users to replace their own batteries in the LED light insert.

I’m combining these two points because they relate to each other. And the node issue of course, relates to what I wrote in point number one above.

Yes, I ordered one of these LED blades, too, and inserted it. The problem here is that not only does the node NOT lock when parked in place (this meaning the light is off), it also doesn’t need to slide forward all that far to activate the LED light. This all serves as a problem when the Keyport is in your pocket, because at some point, the node is going to slide forward just a bit by accident while it’s in your pocket, turning on the light and wearing out the batteries prematurely without you knowing it. This happened to me on several occasions and the batteries died too soon.

This may not seem like a big deal, but on top of this, Keyport suggests that you remove the LED insert, mail it back to them and pay them to have them replace the batteries and send it back to you. That’s a bit of an odd way for any company to handle things, IMO, as this is very inconvenient and far too time consuming to deal with. Way too high maintenance.

Moreover, I noticed that when I’d take the Keyport out of my pocket, I always had to “re-park” the nodes back into place (inserts are fully retracted into the Slide body), because they were always moving forward while in my pocket. As such, I’ve gotten into the habit of taking my finger and thumb and sliding all six nodes at once back into “park” position. No one should have to do this. Even though the nodes are designed to typically be depressed just a bit in order to slide forward, I’ve found this is far too easy to do and sometimes there is almost no depression required in order to slide nodes forward.

Making the nodes truly lockable in both parked and extended positions, would improve the usability of this product dramatically.

3) Keyport needs to consider replacing all plastic with metal… perhaps making the entire Keyport out of titanium (including the endpieces), and replace the plastic on the inserts with metal (and higher quality metal at that).

With this, I’m again thinking of the nick that was taken out of the plastic endpiece while I was trying to pry off a bottle cap, as well as the need for higher quality metal for the inserts (read my other thread about the keyblade warping and breaking for more info on that).

So these are the primary thoughts I have on how they could vastly improve this product. I’ve had other thoughts, too, on what may make it better, but this is the crux of what I wanted to communicate.

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