Chris Nelms

As a fan of the BBC 2 television programme Dragons’ Den I well remember the episode in which the inventor James Halliburton demonstrated his WaterBuoy, a keyfob that, when dropped into water, inflates an orange balloon and turns on a flashing LED so that keys or small items (e.g. a mobile phone) dropped off a boat into the water will float to the surface for retrieval. It is a very clever idea. The keyfob is only about 7cm long x 3 cm wide x 1cm deep, little more than some car central-locking keyfobs. Every boat user recognises the risk of dropping their keys overboard. On the WaterBuoy website (www.water-buoy.com) Halliburton describes how, although he was offered financial backing by the ‘dragons’ on the TV programme, he subsequently declined because he decided that illuminated party balloons using the same technology could be even more profitable than the WaterBuoy.

Until the WaterBuoy came along boaters have usually attached a cork float to their keys. It’s a low-tech, rather bulky solution. Pictured here is a traditional cork float keyring (price £2.25) alongside the WaterBuoy (price £11.70). At first glance it’s a no-brainer. Why carry the bulky cork float around when you could have the compact WaterBuoy? The WaterBuoy has the added advantage of being visible at night which could be important if the keys are dropped into a moving current of water and won’t remain where they were dropped for long. Despite this, in my opinion using the WaterBuoy carries an unacceptable risk and I wouldn’t trust it to look after my keys or small valuables.

A cork ball may be bulky but it can be tested. If, at any time, I wish to verify that my cork float still works, I can drop it into a filled bathtub, swimming pool, or other controlled environment and satisfy myself that it floats. I know that even with rough handling over several years the properties of my cork float that make it less dense than water won’t deteriorate. Therefore I can say with confidence that in ten or even twenty years’ time if I drop my keys attached to the cork float into the water, they will float. It requires no maintenance.

Contrast this with the WaterBuoy. Mine arrived a few days ago (January 2009) but the bottom of the box carries the tiny legend: ‘Production Date 01.2008 Made in China’. So my WaterBuoy is already a year old. Inside the box the printed warranty tells me they will replace any WaterBuoy with a manufacturing defect for a period of 6 months after purchase, and refund the purchase price for a period of 3 years from the production date shown on the packaging (my italics) if the device fails to work. So my 3 year warranty has already decayed to two years before I even obtained the WaterBuoy! Furthermore, if I drop my keys overboard and the WaterBuoy fails to operate, in the event that I manage to get my key-less craft back to the shore they will give me my money back. Big deal. How could I ever prove that the WaterBuoy didn’t work? The defective unit would be conveniently lying on the bottom of the ocean or river or canal, safe from lawyers, courts, and technical specialists. It would be just my word that it didn’t work. So this lack of apparent confidence in their own product by the manufacturer is my first objection.

Secondly, how long will it last? Who can say? We know it contains a battery, an LED, a folded balloon, a container of pressurised gas, and a means of releasing that gas and switching on the light when immersed in water. What is the reliable life-expectancy of those components? My warranty lasts for 2 years. Will I have to buy another WaterBuoy in two years’ time to have complete confidence that my keys will float? If I don’t replace it, will it still work in five years? Ten? I’ve no idea. And this brings me to my final objection, the fact that it cannot be tested.

Unlike the cork float I have no idea if my WaterBuoy will work when required. Probably nearly all WaterBuoys will do what they claim but what if one in a thousand, or one in ten thousand, or even fewer, is defective? I cannot find out if mine is the defective one. I could carry it around for years and only learn that it was defective as I watch my keys sink into the water, never to re-emerge. A brilliant invention, but why risk it?