Locks & Keys

Six thousand years of mechanisms for excluding people, with one of history's best rivalries at its centre.

19 posts· 4000 BCE – 2026

• The hands-free deadbolt, or what ultra-wideband did to the front door 2026
• Matter 1.0, or how the smart lock stopped choosing sides 2022
• The key in your phone: digital car keys and Apple HomeKey 2020
• The August lock, or the year the key went digital 2013
• The transponder key, or how Ford put the lock inside the engine 1996
• The hotel cardkey, invented because someone forgot to fix a lock 1975
• Medeco and the key you couldn't copy 1968
• Soref's laminated padlock, or how a Milwaukee workshop closed the security gap 1921
• No springs: Emil Henriksson's disc detainer lock, Helsinki, 1907 1907
• Sargent's time lock, or how a Rochester locksmith made coercion useless 1873
• Yale's cylinder lock, or how the portrait painter solved the front door 1865
• The Great Lock Controversy of 1851 1851
• The Chubb Detector lock: security with a memory 1818
• Bramah's challenge lock: a 200-guinea dare that stood for sixty-seven years 1784
• The precise lift, or how a Hoxton locksmith beat the pick 1778
• The guild masterpiece, or the keyhole that wasn't there 1411
• The barbed-spring padlock 200 CE
• The Roman warded lock 100 BCE
• The wooden lock, or the first machine for keeping people out 4000 BCE