Pressy: the one-button Android controller | Hacker News Reader

Pressy: the one-button Android controller

engadget.com

40 pointspraveenster25 comments

This is a workaround for the near-total lack of buttons on modern phones.

If phone makers would bring back physical buttons and let users do stuff with them, pressy wouldn't exist. Of course, the trick with putting buttons around a phone is that you have to be careful about which ones you use - I accidentally hit buttons on my Samsung Focus near-constantly because they decided it would be good to include a "camera" button that instantly drops what your doing and jumps you over to the camera app. And a similar "search" face-button.

But really, a pair of unbound L/R shoulder buttons that apps could interpret however they liked (or ignore if it's a portrait-mode app) with no usage on the home-screen? Who wouldn't want that? Would be fantastic for gaming, for camera/AR apps, things like that.

But no, because suddenly everybody think they're Steve Jobs and the phones must have perfectly clean lines, we're left with nothing but hypersensitive capacitive face-buttons and if you want something that actually clicks you have to buy a Nintendo DS.

> But no, because suddenly everybody think they're Steve Jobs and the phones must have perfectly clean lines,

Real buttons are expensive and they fail. Including buttons increases design cost, tooling costs, component cost, build and test cost. It increases the reject rate of the phones. It makes the MTBF worse.

It's a great idea, though. Just two buttons would be awesome, and I can imagine many uses for them.

I think hardware buttons is not very expensive. Typical Android phone cost is about $300, price for dumb phone with hardware keyboard started from $30.

Hardware keyboard on my Nokia 2630 still works without problems after about 4 years of daily usage.

Lack of hardware buttons is on of reasons, why I still don't use smartphone.

A capacitive strip along the side of the phone could work similarly. It wouldn't be the same, obviously. But that, likewise, would be expensive.

They do increases cost and failure rate, but not nearly enough to be an excuse for not having buttons.

Nokia makes incredibly cheap and incredibly durable phones with T9 and qwerty keypads. If I bought one, the 3G network it is designed for would be farmed for 5G before the keypad itself stopped working...

This seems like a really neat idea.. One of the things that I loved about my Droid X and still miss terribly is a physical camera button - it's just so much easier to take my duckface selfies using a physical button!

I like the idea that this is so configurable also - I can think of many applications for something like this..

It's interesting that they have a hardware component, though this really seems to be a kickstarter for a button dedicated 'smart actions' application (in that it works without the button using mute button clicks on headsets) - not that this decreases my interest in it in the least.

Excited to see where this goes...

It doesn't have to be just for Android. There's already interest in it from developers for jailbroken iOS: http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/1lbyrr/pressy_a_b...

And the FAQ on the Kickstarter page indicates that they'd probably welcome that:

> We are not releasing an iOS app for Pressy. There are too many restrictions on the API. We hope our developers community builds an app compatible with iOS.

Am I the only one that uses my headphone socket to, y'know, listen to music?

Exactly my thought, too.

> You can still use it if you have a pair of headphones in too, with the cans' play button subbing in for control.

Sadly, my headphones do not have a button, and I wont be on the go without them, so sadly Pressy is not for me.

I do have earphones with a button, and the button already works to start and stop my music and skip to the next track (with two presses). But sometimes it gets delayed for up to 5 seconds (for reasons I've never understood). If Pressy can fix that then great. But if it can't then there are going to be a lot of disappointed backers out there.

One of my long-term disappointments with Android is that they never used the modified plug the iPhone uses that also allows for volume control. But then, Apple may have patented it.

I wonder if people that are interested in only the App to have their Headphones buttons remapped comfortably will be able to acquire that, and for what price. Not that I have done any research on Apps that already do that, since as I said, my headphones don't have a button. :)

You are correct. Apple did indeed patent it. I don't remember the source but distinctly remember reading that Apple had gotten just such a patent.

Not that all manufacturers seem to care since I have a handful of Nokias that do the same thing...

I guess you also don't own any keys or a keychain then too? Since it comes with a keychain "fake audio jack" to hold pressy when not in the audiojack

I do, but I still do not see a use case for me. When I'm on the go, I am almost always listening to music.

Why so sad?

not the only one but, I would take a customizable feature button over the headphone jack; there is always BLE :)

The kickstarter response implies that there is a market for this thing. You personally are not part of that market, but I'm not sure why you are complaining about that.

Okay, so let's Kickstart an inline adapter that adds a button to any pair of headphones, at $29.99. Yes? We'd be zillionares!

Edit: I spoiled it for myself by Googling, and of course that product already exists. Even Belkin have one: http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Headphone-Adapter-Remote-shuffl.... There's also a DIY solution: http://www.depotbassam.com/2012/01/diy-smartphone-headphone-....

I've been using Bluetooth earbuds since I got my first A2DP-supporting phone in 2006. Having a cable snaking down into my pocket was always a bother and I'm pretty clumsy so I'd always get it caught in door handles etc. Nearly all Bluetooth headphones have music controls, some even have an LCD screen to show the song title so you can leave your phone in your bag.

I think they've made the best kickstarter video so far.

I figured this could be done by overriding any existing hardware button callbacks, but apparently you can not outside of your app (see this SO question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2986337/is-it-possible-to...).

So what happens when Pressy is pushed when it's inside my pocket? Make a photo? Call mom? Flashlight? The latter may be dangerous even, with the heat that it can produce.

Not quite unthinkable since the button is sticking out if the phone.

Maybe you don't configure a single click to do anything?

Perhaps deactivate Pressy if the phone is locked? Does that kill all useful actions?

custom actions like this for your hardware buttons should work with the existing buttons without the need for the hack. holding power on with some custom roms can be configured to have the flashlight on while it's held.

would be nice if an api for these buttons existed in the android sdk. anyone know if it's there?

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