Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET
How many times have you lost your phone or left your keys behind somewhere? If you're anything like me, I'm betting quite a lot. Thankfully, this doesn't always turn into a bad day where you need to replace your phone or call a locksmith thanks to tough phone cases and AirTags.
But it can, and I prefer prevention over cure, which is why I like to tether important stuff to myself, especially when I'm traveling or hiking. And the tether I've been using for many years now is from a US company called KeyBak.
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KeyBak makes a few different styles of tether, with clips and belt clips and even belt loops. There are also different retraction strengths and cord lengths available, depending on the load that you want to attach.
My favorite KeyBak, however, is the Ratch-It.
The Ratch-It features a 36-inch Kevlar cord wound onto a retractor that's powered by a stainless steel spring built to handle loads up to 15 oz/425 g.
The cord itself can easily handle loads exceeding 80 pounds and is highly abrasion-resistant, so it's not going to break without quite a fight, and is capable of handling big bunches of keys -- even with a lot of EDC gadgets attached. For example, my iPhone 17 Pro Max weighs 8.22 oz/233 grams naked, and doesn't come close to the max load even in the bulkiest of cases.
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The retractor mechanism is housed in a tough, impact-resistant polycarbonate housing that can take a serious beating (I slipped and fell on this one hiking down to the base of a dam once and it shrugged that off). On the other end is a strong spring clip for attaching the KeyBak to clothing, belts, or rucksacks.
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