Targeting the Smart Key Replacement Market

There’s an untapped market in automotive key replacement, and that market is enormous—an estimated $3.4 billion. According to a recent webinar, that market is the 50 percent of passenger vehicle drivers (some 108 million registered in the U.S.) that have just one set of keys for their vehicle. What happened to the other set? Lost, broken, washed, never received. And whether these drivers know it or not, they are one mishap away from having a very bad day.

There’s reason to believe that these drivers are aware of the precarious nature of their key-challenged state and would eagerly get a second set if they knew either where to get one or if they were aware of an alternative to the wait and expense of the dealership. Enter the key generating and immobilizer programming tool and the IKEY, a programmable universal Smart Key.

The sleek, 5.5-inch Wi-Fi touchscreen tablet can program the IKEY to replace the Smart Keys for more than 700 vehicles, including those made by Hyundai, Nissan, Chrysler, General Motors, and select BMW, Audi and Volkswagens. Authorized technicians can use the KM100 to program the key in about a minute and then, via the included Bluetooth vehicle communication interface (VCI), learns the key to the vehicle. The KM100 kit includes two IKEYs. IKEY is available in more than 30 designs. It comes with two to seven-button configurations that support different vehicle functions, such as trunk release, remote start, panic, air suspension, convertible top, and OE-like styling.

 In addition to Key Generation with the IKEY, the KM100 can read/write and clone transponders, supports immobilizer learning via OBD for 90 percent of vehicle brands, can detect and read frequency, and supports Key Learning for 36 vehicle brands and Transponder editing for 20 supported protocols. ID63/ID83 conversion is