Fancy a programmable hardware button for your Android smartphone? Of course you do.

The disclaimer here is I don’t have an Android smartphone. But I also don’t use the headphone jack on the Windows Phone smartphone I do have. Why? I’m what I call “functionally deaf” in my left ear – I can hear, but only at decibel levels achieved in a sound booth, and even then it has to be at such a high level as to render any sound heard as junk, garbage, a blast of noise. If I DO use headphones, I become quickly pissed off with them, because I only get half the channels. Do you know how annoying it is to be signing along and all of a sudden you’re only hearing the bass and not the lyrics that you just KNOW are there?

So would I like to have a programmable hardware button that uses the headphone jack? You bet your sweet bippy I would!

Enter Pressy – the Almighty Android Button! It’s a Kickstarter project. When I read the project description, it had just under the $40K (US) that it was raising. As of just this second, it’s at $42+. According to their press kit, $40K basically covers production costs – not patent, marketing, or the materials they’ve already used in their prototyping.

Run their free app as a background process (that only activates when the button is pressed), you can program Pressy with a series of custom presses (1-3, short or long. Play Morse Code of your own!) to assign it actions. Want a dedicated camera button? Set that maybe as 1 short press. Turn on the flashlight? Maybe a single long press. Do you SMS your spouse every time you leave work? Program it once in Pressy, and then all you have to do is remember the combination.

It sticks out .7mm, so it really isn’t going to interfere with anything. Want to plug in your headphones for a while? Pull it out and store it in keychain accessory.

It’s a Kickstarter project, so there are “levels” of backing. At $5, they’ll love you with a shout-out, $12 you get a t-shirt. The Early Bird Special ($15 for a Pressy) is sold out, but you can still get one at $17, or a colored top one at $20. $20 could also get you a black Pressy and the keychain holder.  $25 will get you a colored-top Pressy and coordinating keychain. $45 will get a gold-plated one. Are you an Android developer? $1000 will get “API Implementation.” Since they say that their API is free, I’m assuming that means they’ll implement your app as a Pressy function. But that their API is free means you can go ahead and integrate it into your app if you want!

I would really like to see this become a reality, because I love the idea of being able to use an unused (and for me, nearly unusable) jack for something more useful to me. I’d just have to have an Android device. Sigh.

Now sit back and watch the funny ad.