It really is amazing what people think of … while the world has given us some extremely useful inventions: like the wheel, the toaster and the electric nose hair puller, it has also given us some not-so-useful ones. These retractable doorknobs are possibly one of them! Another one of the many things that makes me wish that someone had thought of all the starving, homeless people in the world before deciding that what the world really needed was …

These doorknobs by Yanko Design, which are supposed to provide extra security by retracting after you leave the house. Burglars cannot enter (ahem!!!), because they cannot pick the lock, because there is no lock to pick. If you are like any of the commentors on the site where we found them (www.gizmodo.com), you have probably seen one to ten of the hundred things that are wrong with the premise, and the execution. The author mentions that they won’t stop the FBI from kicking down your door (if you happen to be one of those criminals with all the lastest gadgets, but absolutely no brains!), and several other people also point out that the door knob, and the lock, are not the weakest points of a door. The weakest point is the door frame, which these doorknobs do nothing to affect. They become even more pointless when you consider the fact that any burglar worth his salt wouldn’t be kicking down a door … or probably even picking a lock. They’d just be breaking a window, getting in and out as fast as possible. In fact I think you might be doing your neighbourhood burglar a bit of a favour, giving him some comic relief on his way to work! You might find yourself burgled even more often, as they come back to see what other funny tricks you have on your door :-)

Some of the other weak points (to put it mildly!) of these doorknobs include:
They could no doubt be suction-cup operated! Even if you just used them for privacy within your own home, you’d likely find a kid brother or other smarty-pants relative opening the door at exactly the wrong time with a magnet, the bathroom plunger, or a very fine bit of wire…
The fact that they are more (he-hem) hi-tech than a standard door knob means they are more likely to break down … just look under ‘doorknobsmith’ in your Yellow Pages. They have apprenticeships for those guys now!
The fact that the kids coming home from school past your apartment will be looking for handy holes to stick their chewing gum in … and also the fact that spiders and bugs love small, enclosed dark spaces.

Aren’t you glad that with lovely artistic traditional doorknobs such as you have, nobody will ever make a retractable version for your house?

          

This entry was filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.