No - “Chubby Buttons” is not the name of a second-tier children’s birthday clown. At least not the Chubby Buttons I’m referring to, anyway.
It is also not a nickname you should ever give to your significant other. Or maybe it is - what do I know about your relationship? You do you!
Rather, Chubby Buttons is a Bluetooth remote control for your mobile device. What it does is fairly simple: It gives you buttons - big, chubby buttons, with clearly marked functions - to control the audio functions on your touchscreen device.
Why would you want this? Well, as versatile as touchscreen devices are, their utility goes right out the window when you are engaged in any activity that requires the use of gloves or mittens. That’s when the versatility declines markedly. Your choices become more limited - either pull that glove off and expose yourself to exactly the elements you were avoiding, or invest in gloves that have a capacitive touch area.
Anyone who has used the latter option likely is familiar with the limitations this provides. And you could hail your voice assistant. But when I’m out on the trike, I often find that Siri either can’t hear me because of the wind, or maybe she’s just mad because I went for a ride and isn’t talking to me. But either way, she doesn’t work well under those circumstances.
MLW got me this device for Christmas last year - 2019. It was extremely thoughty of her. She knows I spend a lot of time on outdoor activities in the winter - cycling, cross-country skiing (when the weather gods provide enough snow), shoveling. I almost always listen to some type of audio - usually podcasts or audiobooks - when I engage in these activities. It was just about a perfect gift for me.
So of course I didn’t use it at all last winter.
In my defense, the winter of 2019 was incredibly mild, at least here in Northern Illinois. Looking back across the end of December 2018 and through January to March 2019 temps rarely drop below 30°F, and there are multiple days in late December with highs in the mid-50’s. It was so rarely cold enough to fear for my fingers that I just didn’t get around to setting the device up.
This December hasn’t been super-frigid, but it’s been colder than last year, so I decided it was time to break out the buttons.
Pairing it to your device is a pretty straightforward process - if you’ve used other Bluetooth devices, this will be pretty straightforward. From there it may take a second or three to wrap your head around what it does at first. Unlike a Bluetooth speaker or set of headphones, for example, all it does is provide controls. But the key to that is that it works with other Bluetooth devices also connected.
This means that once it’s all hooked up you can put on your headphones - wired or wireless - and use the chubby buttons for volume, start, stop, fast forward. Your phone and the audio controls that many Bluetooth headphones have can all, say, be buried under multiple layers clothing, or secured away in a pannier bag, and you still have basic control of your audio entertainment. I really like my AirPods Pro, but one of the real downsides is that their touch controls are pretty hard to use when they are tucked into a balaclava. These fix that. Beyond that, all I can say about this feature is that it just works - it has a basic function, which it performs, thus far, flawlessly in my experience. The company claims that it’s durable, temperature, and water resistant. So far, I’ve used it in temperatures down to the mid-teens (F), and in light rain, without a hiccup.
It comes with an armband strap that is stretchy and has a large swath of Velcro. It’s adjustable so you can set it for different sizes - important for outdoor activity, because you may be wearing different clothing and/or different amounts of layers. Reviews on Amazon suggest some users had trouble getting it to stay on their forearms, but I haven’t had that experience (and Popeye I am not). I’ve used it on my left forearm, towards the inside of the arm (the part you see when you look at your palm). This makes the controls easily accessible while I’m riding my trike.
While overall this is a pretty simple device, it does offer a few additional features. If you look at the face of it, below the volume-up button you will see an engraved outline of a camera. This button is essentially a remote for the camera - it allows you to snap a picture or start a video from a distance. For folks looking to take selfies at a distance greater than arm’s reach (or who struggle to get the right shot with a timer), or who want to start a video session while they are away from the phone, this provides that option. The company’s website claims a Bluetooth range of up to 100’, so this could make for a nice approach video. (Yes - I’d guess at least one of those will show up here at some point).
In addition, the backside of the Chubby Buttons is covered in “nanosuction backing”. This allows you to stick it to all sorts of flat surfaces. I’ve tried this out in the academic sense - stuck it to the top of my desk, the side of a bookshelf, etc. It seems to work just fine, and attaches to things securely (it can take some real force to pull it up off of a surface). I could see using this in a car, sticking it to the dash (especially in a rental car, for example). The company’s website shows people sticking it to the gas tank of a motorcycle, with the implication that it would stay secure there, in motion, as well. I have no evidence to the contrary, but I might be reluctant to trust it to that level.
The version of this little device that I have is apparently the first generation of the product. The company is now selling a second generation product that adds a couple of additional features: The new version will apparently allow you to herald your voice assistant and allow you to pick up or decline calls.
All of this does come at a price - specifically, at $75 on its website and, while its available thru Amazon, the price is the same there. Whether that is too expensive or not is a personal decision, but a quick search on Amazon finds few truly competing products (I had no idea these were a thing at all until MLW gave it to me). And those that have similar features in terms of all-weather capability are in a similar price range or higher. And none of them seem to have anything quite comparable to those big, glove-friendly buttons.
And, if the device turns out to be as durable as it appears to be over first use, this strikes me as a long-term item. Bluetooth is ubiquitous at this point, and likely to be for the foreseeable future. It will almost certainly work with multiple generations of mobile devices - I’ve already used it across two iPhones. And I’ll try to report back after the winter and see if it really is as durable as it seems.