CARBOCAGECARBOCAGE KEYCAGE - The Smart Carbon Key Organizer - Made in Germany

Still using till this day

Easy to use and holds my keys perfectly! Nice and durable and organized

What prompted me to spend $30 to organize some keys in my pocket? I was wearing pants at work and the keys were sharply poking into my pockets and I thought there has to be a solution to this problem.This brought me to this product. I leaned towards Carbocage over other options primarily because it seemed smaller, had tighter screws and no leather that would wear out. Let’s see how it performs in reality.The product looks good and is well machined with no sharp edges. It includes all the necessary parts to extend it including an optional key ring addon (the source of my biggest frustration).Installation was fairly straight forward, however you have to be a little dextrous to stack and make sure nothing falls apart before screwing together. It does take some strategy behind how to place which keys where.Now to use. My 4 keys and 3 store mini reward cards all fit fine in a neat little package solving my problem of sharp keys poking my pants. My biggest gripe is that with the added key ring adapter and attaching something to the key ring (in my case my car fob), any key on that side is difficult to use. I have shown an example photo of using a key in my door. You can see that I have to grab my car fob in addition to the Carbocage to turn the key. It’s just awkward and potentially in my case introduces the possibility that I will unlock or set off my car alarm while turning the key. This is entirely dependent on what you have attached. If you don’t use the key ring adapter it is a nonissue.Pros- does organize the keys well- has a small footprint with keys on each side- provides lots of pieces to make it very flexible- is lightweight and not intrusive- does accommodate plastic store reward cards- looks nice if you are into carbon fiber- seems well made (time will tell)Cons- in reality it is slower to access your keys- if you use the optional key ring piece, any thing attached to the key ring may potentially impede the keys partially.- While the setup was ok for me, those that are less dextrous may have a little difficulty

I did a fair amount of research before settling on the product, and I'm glad I did. It works exactly as advertised, and although it looks like it's made out of cheap plastic, the carbon fiber material seems to be extremely strong. I've been using mine for months and there's not a single scratch visible.The main reason I wanted to review this product was to offer some tips.If for any reason you lose the original hardware kit that comes with it, the good news is that most of the parts are easy to replace with parts you can find at any major hardware store. The screws that hold it together are metric M4-0.7 flat head machine screws, which were available at my local store in a variety of lengths up to 30mm, which is the size I ended up using to jam ton of stuff into my Carbocage. I couldn't find washers that quite match the originals, but 5/32" neoprene washers work great. (If you opt for washers made of a rigid material, go for a slightly larger size, because the neoprene washers I got need to stretch a bit to fit onto the screws.)If you're dealing with odd-shaped items, it can also help to get creative with the placement of the O-rings; just make sure you have two on each side, because the squishiness of the rubber creates tension that keeps the screws from coming loose; if you don't install them properly, the screws will loosen noticeably over the course of a few days.Another thing that helped with some of the more funny-shaped keys was to use some 5/8" metal washers that I happened to have lying around.A nice thing about of replacing the screws is that the original ones require a 2.5mm hex wrench (included in the package) to open, but the replacements I found are slotted for a Philips screwdriver. That's a big plus for me because one of the items in my Carbocage is a knife (SOG Key Folding Knife KEY102-CP - 1.5" Blade, Brass Stainless Steel Handle). If I forget to remove it before flying, and I get caught by the TSA, I can remove it with the multitool I always carry (Gerber Dime Travel Bladeless Knife). Since I don't normally carry hex wrenches, getting busted with the original screws in place could be a major hassle!One final bit of advice, or more of a warning, really: if you're as fussy as I am, you can expect to disassemble and re-arrange your keys a couple of dozen times before you get everything just right, and if you're buying a product like this, you probably are as fussy as I am, so plan on spending at least an hour to two experimenting.