"Tile" or equivalent for trolley keys

[Jawloms]

Hi all,

 

We have four laptop trollies and a booking system for people to use. Despite this, people take the wrong keys, don't return them, give them to other people, etc. I begrudge spending money on a technical solution for what is a simple people problem, but wondered if there is a cheapish alternative to something like the tile which would connect to the Wi-Fi or something? The cheap ones seem to only use Bluetooth so won't really help me if it's been left the other side of the school I'm guessing?

 

Thank you

 

Stuart

[Rob_D]

Non, technical, but we just attach loan keys and fobs to a roughly student-sized lump of neon-coloured Perspex. That tends to mean they show up pretty quick.

 

For a technical solution, maybe look at pet trackers. There are some cheapish ones that don't require a subscription.

[jthompson]

If it were me, I'd first look at getting some dummy keytags that look like tracker tags but are just a lump of inexpensive plastic, and see to what degree that encourages human compliance.

[NegativeKillDeath]

I'd go lowtech. Either a comically oversized keyring or a deposit required.

[Jawloms]

My current key fobs......

 

 

Sadly I'm not sure a fake keytag would make a lot of difference as I don't think most of the staff would know what a keytag is, and I don't think the students would care.

[ITGuyNW]

I don't trusts them with the keys. My precious.

[DavR]

My current key fobs......

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]71412[/ATTACH]

 

 

Those are great

 

A fun few hours after school in the DT room?

 

We have one of our playground gate keys attached to a novelty flyswatter....

[jthompson]

Buy a big tub of Cadbury's Heroes and add labels to your keyfobs that read:

 

Returning on time: 3 sweeties

Returning late: only 1 sweetie

 

On a more constructive note, there are a bunch of new entrants into this market that make use of the Google Find My Device network. I've not used any of them, but A 4-pack of these ones is £90 - https://chipolo.net/en/products/chipolo-one-point.

[Jawloms]

Those are great

 

A fun few hours after school in the DT room?

 

Well yes, except - https://www.edugeek.net/forums/behind-red-door/86953-request-week-475.html#post2016092

[DavR]

Well yes, except - https://www.edugeek.net/forums/behind-red-door/86953-request-week-475.html#post2016092

 

There's only so much you can do, there's no accounting for end users!

[speakercon]

Convert the trolley locks to code locks, I've changed loads over myself using a mixture of the bellow locks (about £40 each) or other combo of code dead locks or combo padlocks. Lost keys are a thing of the past!

 

[Jawloms]

Nice idea, but it won't stop people taking laptops from a trolley they haven't booked, and then us knowing where the laptops are.

[DrCheese]

Convert the trolley locks to code locks, I've changed loads over myself using a mixture of the bellow locks (about £40 each) or other combo of code dead locks or combo padlocks. Lost keys are a thing of the past!

 

Aye was going to say this - We bought our lapsafe's with code locks to avoid this. If you can convert your existing devices then I'd definitely recommend this.

[Aprice]

If I could actually get people to put laptops in the trolley I might look at this. Keep wandering the school picking up laptops from every corner of the school. It's completely unmanageable.