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Deal alert: CleanKey helps you press buttons and open doors without actually touching them
Our partner site, ZDNet Academy, has been selling one tool perhaps more than any other this past week. It's something that offers protection and convenience during uncertain times.
Called the CleanKey, the makers of the tool, KeySmart, claim it is specially designed to limit germ exposure and transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic. It hangs on your keychain, so you can bring anywhere and use it to press buttons, open doors, and pull levers. It essentially helps eliminate direct contact with contaminated surfaces.
Disclosure: ZDNet may earn an affiliate commission from some of the products featured on this page. ZDNet and the author were not compensated for this independent review.
CleanKey comes with a retractable carabiner so you can attach it to anything, not just your keys. You can use it to avoid touching public touchscreens, including ATMs and store checkouts, and its design makes it easy to also open doors, press buttons, and pull levers. It's made to reduce your point-of-contact area by over 99%.
But the neatest feature is that it is built with 62% copper content, which KeySmart says makes it "inherently antimicrobial, killing or slowing down the spread of microorganisms including bacteria, viruses, protozoans, and fungi." If you're not sure about that, you can still clean the tool with steel wool or disinfectant wipes.
If any of this interests you, the CleanKey one-pack and two-pack deals are sold out on ZDNet Academy, but you can still get the three pack for $49.99, down from $74.97. That's a 33% savings.
Be sure to look around ZDNet Academy, because there are similar deals, such as this Hygiene Hand tool, which is also made of brass and copper and claims to kill germs while also helping you open and interact with things without actually touching them. It's available for $19.99. You only get one key, of course, and it's not as popular as CleanKey, but it works the same.