Hi guys, this is Alex from UrbanAlps. I am very happy to see the controversy around our invention and startup. First of all I am sorry to write in English, but my German skills are not good enough for the task. Thats also the reason for our website language, although we now have a partial German version:
http://www.urbanalps.com/de/
I want to respond to some of the questions raised:
-We are located in Switzerland and we live in Switzerland
-I am sure you understand we are not Kaba or Assa Abloy, we have limited budget.
-Why do we have freelancers? Well, not everybody is willing to quit their daily job to jump into a startup.
-We have physical prototypes of keys and locks: we are not just nice renders, we have a 3D metal printer inhouse and we produce keys (check pictures on our website portfolio, just below the orange bar section).
-We are focusing on a niche market as you mention.
-Durability of the lock that appears online is certainly challenging. It is in fact an old version of our current designs.
-Apart from the key, I encourage you to think beyond it. We are bringing 3D metal printing to the industry of keys. We have a freedom in key design that you could never dream of. Forget Key blanks, forget Silka, you just need metal powder and a Laser machine.
-And I am pretty sure your read about the TSA master keys and grasp the issue that is coming.
-In 1 year time your smartphones will 3D scan (Intel announced it in March 2015 and Apple is making it after acquiring Primesense/Xbox Kinect). 3D Key copy protection is going to be crucial. There are other solutions that also work, we just bring one that we consider brings new value to the customer at a competitive price.
I hope I have addressed most of the questions. In any case, I would be happy to help with more if I can.
Alejandro