My Experience Copying a Key: Minute Key vs KeyMe vs Key Hero

I needed to make a copy of a house key so I looked for a local place to get it done. I saw there were some self-serve kiosk options so I decided to try it out since I figured it would be pretty easy.

Minute Key:
First I tried Minute Key which was located in a Walmart. I started here because they seemed to have a lot of locations and I thought I might be able to use a promo code and maybe even get a free key.

So I find the machine in the Walmart and the screen is messed up. It was blurry so you couldn't read it. I tried to use it anyway but it ended up getting stuck halfway through the process. My key was stuck in the machine and nothing was working to cancel it.

I called over customer service but they were not much help. After about 5 minutes it was able to cancel and release the key so that was a relief, but overall bad experience and I was not able to make a copy of the key.

KeyMe:
There was a Menards nearby and I saw they have a kiosk called KeyMe so I decided to try it out. This one seemed to work ok, the only problem was it said my key was uncommon so they would have to ship it to me. This was really disappointing because my key was as basic as they get.

I needed the key that day so I was not going to wait around for it to be shipped. So far 0 for 2.

Key Hero:
I decided to try one more, a kiosk called Key Hero which was in Home Depot. I go to the machine to start and immediately it says I need to call over an employee to do it. Again very disappointing. The whole point of the kiosk is so you can do it yourself and you don't have to find someone to do it for you.

After about 5 minutes I was able to get someone to help. I gave them the key and they were able to copy it. It was not that quick but they got it done. Also it was confirmed that it was a common key so I'm not sure why the other machine at Menards said it wasn't.

Conclusion:
After trying Minute Key, KeyMe, and Key Hero, I was let down by all of them. I'm surprised that this seems to be such a difficult task. Maybe I just had some bad luck with the machines, but overall the experience was difficult and I had to go to 3 different stores just to make 1 copy of a basic house key.

If you are looking to make a duplicate of a key, you can try them out if you want to, but you might be better off just asking someone at the local hardware store to make a copy for you.