How is the physical function of the button?
I'm using mine on a Samsung S4 running standard Samsung UI based on Android 4.4.2. I like it, but it's hobbled by some first-generation problems that hopefully the company will iron out with future updates.
Here's my experience:
Hardware: The button itself is decent build quality, and feels like it should last for at least as many actuations (presses) as the phones own power and volume buttons. Nice physical stop to the button when pressed that you can feel but can't hear.
Button extends about 2mm (tiny bit more than 1/16") from the top edge of the phone. I'm using a Spigen NeoHybrid case, and the button fits through the hole for the headphone jack easily. Button does not stick up out of the case far enough, though; I need to either press the pad of my finger in there firmly to click it, or else use the tip of my fingernail. On the plus side, this means I can toss the phone in a pocket and not worry about the button accidentally getting pressed.
Software: Three categories of problems with the official app: setup, customizations, responsiveness.
Setup problems: Lots of complaints online about the setup (
see commenters on Kickstarter page). As someone else previously noted, it's hard to put the button into the phone without triggering a button press, but that's really minor. Setting up the Pressy App itself is more problematic.
The app's first-time setup screen asks the user to set the Pressy App as the default process using the headphone button. You tell the app that the Pressy is inserted, select Pressy to be the app that default "always" responds to the headphone button. OK so far. But then the phone has another pop-up asking you to choose a default, except now the only options are Google (Google Now) and Samsung S Voice.
At this point the phone enters a loop. If you press the exit softkey, the popup reappears. If you select Google or S Voice, it will take you directly to that app. If you exit and try to return to the Pressy app, it reenters the loop. It's as if the app is continuously sending a trigger signal, but the phone won't give you the option to choose Pressy as default. Feels a lot like a programming glitch.
The system's popup asking you to set a default is floating over the app's regular screen; so you can try to hit one of the app's screen buttons that appear when the looping system popup disappears for a second before reappearing. Can't recall if that eventually worked for me, or if I just hit the home button to exit. Eventually I was able to get into the app and set custom button presses.
Currently, my problem is that a long-press opens Samsung S Voice rather than being interpreted by the Pressy app. Apparently this is a known issue related to having difficulty changing the defaults. You can disable/uninstall both Google Now and Samsung S Voice, but I like both and wouldn't want to.
Customization problems: The level of customization is not quite as good as I think most users would like. I assume this will get improved over time but for now this is feeling like a first-gen app with too-few options.
For example, I'd like a simple button press to set up a text to my wife that I could manage entirely by voice recognition (my preferred way to text). Instead the texting option is to set up a fixed message to a fixed recipient. So you could have it send a message saying permanently "running late" to your gf/spouse but nothing more than that. For my purposes, I'd be better off triggering S Voice or Google Now, both of which can handle voice-activated texting.
Also I'd really like to see more precise app processes, like you can do with some launchers. Not just "open app", but "open app and begin specific app process". For example, I set up a button combo to run SoundHound, but it simply opens the app when I want it to start listening to a song immediately. (Shazam settings can be set to automatically listen, so there's your workaround there.)
The take a picture setting is decent. Just a second or two faster than turning on the screen, swiping on directly to camera, and taking photo. Minor complaint is that it puts Pressy instant photos in a separate folder, not the main Camera folder. The photos are a little worse than when I use the Samsung Camera or Google Camera apps, but that could be due to the choices I made under Pressy's instant photo settings, where you can choose flash and other settings.
Responsiveness: Final comment is about Responsiveness. Sometime's it's snappy and other times it's incredibly laggy. Depending how overstuffed your phone is with apps and processes (I'm running my S4 with factory UI but tons of apps), there's can be an unpredictable lag with the haptic response. This wouldn't seem to be a big deal but you need to haptic feedback to let you know if your short or long press was received as such. So you end up pressing the wrong combinations and getting unintended results. Not sure if a brand new phone, pristine from the retailer without a crap-ton of apps would respond more quickly or not.
It would be great if anyone has both a Pressy and a very uncluttered/new phone could comment on its performance. Is responsiveness a ton better? Similarly if anyone figured out how to either set the app up without the looping default screens; or if anyone figured out how to improve responsiveness of the app to button presses; they should write it up here!