Pressy Adds A Customizable Button Using Your Smartphone's Headphone Jack

Although it might make smartphone hardware and UI designers feel the same way a fine chef does when a diner dumps ketchup all over their steak, there’s a smartphone add-on button in the works called Pressy that would let Android users perform a number of actions with simple button clicks.

Pressy is a tiny button that fits into your headphone jack, and it’s surprisingly unobtrusive. It works with its own app, so users can set up a number of quick actions, including sending a message, taking a photo or video, recording a phone call, sending your location in case of emergency, and more.

Pressy

All of that is configurable through the app, so you can decide how many clicks will do what. By default out of the box, Pressy knows how to turn on your flashlight (one short click), take your phone in and out of silent mode (one long click), and take a picture (double-click).

Pressy

If you happen to want to use your headphone jack for, say, headphones, you can yank Pressy out and pop it into a special keychain attachment and just use your headphone controls for all those functions, instead.

Pressy app

The Pressy team has an API so devs can continue to add features, and they’re soliciting funds on Kickstarter to send the thing into mass production. So far so good--the guys have raised $310,915 so far with 44 days to go, which is a good step beyond the $40,000 they were hoping to get.