{"id":35826,"date":"2026-04-27T06:38:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T13:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/?p=35826"},"modified":"2026-04-27T06:38:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T13:38:51","slug":"ces-2026-clicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/ces-2026-clicks\/","title":{"rendered":"CES 2026: Clicks Power Keyboard &#038; Communicator with Physical Buttons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Allison interviews Jeff Gadway, CMO and Founder of Clicks, about their Clicks Power Keyboard, a MagSafe accessory that combines a battery pack with a slide-out physical keyboard. It works with various phone sizes and connects via Bluetooth to multiple devices, offering a tactile typing experience that some users find more accurate and engaging than touchscreens.<\/p>\n<p>He highlights its flexibility, including adjustable orientation for ergonomics and the ability to pair with up to three devices. The product draws inspiration from older keyboard-centric phones, like BlackBerry, while adapting to modern, multi-device use.<\/p>\n<p>Gadway also presents the Clicks Communicator, a compact Android smartphone designed to reduce distractions. It features a physical keyboard, smaller display, and full app support, positioned either as a focused secondary device or a minimalist primary phone.<\/p>\n<p>The Communicator includes accessibility features, customizable design options, and standard smartphone capabilities, but requires its own SIM. Both products aim to promote more intentional, efficient interaction with technology.<\/p>\n<p>Learn more at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clicks.tech\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.clicks.tech\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lQ7wCeQ_wyI\" title=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Using a Screen Reader? <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/lQ7wCeQ_wyI\">click here<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Transcript of Interview<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Bart Busschots is a big fan of the Clicks keyboard, but the one problem with it was that once you got a new phone, all of a sudden you couldn&#8217;t use your Clicks keyboard. But they&#8217;ve come out with a new solution to that, and I am here with Jeff Gadway from Clicks. How are you doing tonight?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> I&#8217;m doing really well. Thanks for coming.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> All right, so what is this new solution for Clicks?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> The Power Keyboard is a MagSafe battery pack and keyboard in one. You pop it on the back of your phone, slide it out, and you&#8217;ve got a full keyboard. It fits every size of phone from small to large. And because it&#8217;s a Bluetooth keyboard, it also works with all of your smart devices, so your smart TV, your tablet, or even a headset for immersive reality.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Are you telling me I can type in the password to my Apple TV?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Oh my gosh, this is one of my favorite things about it. The horizontal keyboard with the little D-pad makes those 12-character passwords with uppercase and lowercase much easier.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> I&#8217;ve got a goat in the middle of mine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Oh yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Can you do HP printers too? That would be awesome.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Ooh &#8211; I haven&#8217;t tested that one yet, but never say never. Anything that accepts an external Bluetooth keyboard, Power Keyboard will work with it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> What is interesting about Power Keyboard is that it&#8217;s a real throwback to the BlackBerry. We all gave it up and went, okay, overall this is better, but man, I love that keyboard, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> There are some things where a physical keyboard is just better. Since we&#8217;ve had the Clicks keyboard case in market the last two years, what we&#8217;ve heard from people around the world is that when they&#8217;re typing on real buttons, they have more confidence, more certainty, and they actually feel more creative and more connected to their content too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Because you&#8217;re not thinking about whether it&#8217;s changing the word into something you shouldn&#8217;t write to your boss.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Ducking right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Absolutely. So this is really slick. One thing the lady earlier was showing me was that you can slide it straight down, or you can turn your phone 90 degrees and shorten the throw. To me that made it a little more ergonomic weight-wise. I would say it changes the balance, the center of gravity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Yeah, it certainly moves the center of gravity down. I think it&#8217;s really about optimizing the layout for the task at hand. For a quick response, maybe you pop it out and type a few words. But if you&#8217;re working in a document or a spreadsheet, maybe working wide like that is a little better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> So this syncs over Bluetooth, or connects over Bluetooth, I should say. So Android and iPhone?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Absolutely. It pairs with Android and pairs with iPhone. You can actually pair up to three different devices simultaneously and then switch between them with a keyboard shortcut.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Oh, that is sweet. Very nice. All right, so you have another device that&#8217;s getting a lot of buzz and it&#8217;s called Clicks Communicator, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Tell us about that. Oh, sorry. What is the cost of the Clicks&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> The retail price on this is $109 US, but we&#8217;ve got a special launch promotion on right now for 79 bucks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> 79 bucks. And the product again is called?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Clicks Power Keyboard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Clicks Power Keyboard. Okay. Let&#8217;s talk Clicks Communicator now. We have to go to the glass enclosure down here. See if we can elbow our way in. Well, you work here. You should be able to get us in here, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Here, I&#8217;ll switch spots with you. We&#8217;ll dance a little bit.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> I&#8217;m going to slide this way. Oh. Was he recording?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Exactly. Not quite.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Don&#8217;t want to block him. Here, you come here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> No, you need to be here. You point. We&#8217;re just going to dance for a while.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Oh, okay. Okay, we&#8217;ll dance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> You&#8217;re fun. So under glass we have?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> We have the Clicks Communicator, which is a new type of smartphone that&#8217;s really been optimized for helping you communicate in a very noisy world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> So this is a secondary device that I understand is supposed to separate you from the doom scrolling and all that, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> For many it may be a secondary device, but it is fully equipped to be a primary smartphone. It runs Android 16, it has its own SIM card, its own data connection. When we talk about it as a secondary device, it&#8217;s kind of the way you think about an iPad relative to an e-reader like a Kindle. They&#8217;re standalone devices, but they work together to provide different features and benefits. You use your Kindle to read because it&#8217;s lighter, it has a better screen, better battery life, and you use your iPad for consuming multimedia. In the same way, Communicator is what you would use to respond to your messages and tackle tasks, whereas your touchscreen smartphone is what you use to go on social media and doom scroll.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Let&#8217;s be serious. I&#8217;m just playing on TikTok looking at kittens, right? I definitely understand that because I do use a Kindle to read, but I&#8217;ve got an iPad for playing around and doing all the other things. But what I can&#8217;t quite follow is, don&#8217;t you need a separate SIM card for that from your regular phone?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> You absolutely do. It&#8217;s a complete standalone phone with its own SIM card and its own data and wireless service.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Okay. So you&#8217;ve got to kind of manage having two phone numbers and text messaging, for example.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> What you find is that there&#8217;s a really large and growing number of people who are already doing that. Some people are given a corporate-deployed device because they work in a sensitive industry. Other people just want more separation between work life and personal life. And then you&#8217;ve got a growing number of people who are really focused on digital well-being and digital minimalism. So they want more separation so they can stay more focused and not be distracted by all the stuff coming at them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> It&#8217;s a really interesting idea. So Clicks Communicator was, again, well, we haven&#8217;t even described the device. Tell us what it looks like.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> It&#8217;s a compact keyboard smartphone with a 4.03-inch display. It runs Android 16, so you can put all your apps on it. It has a signal light, which you can see there, which will help bring attention to messages that require your attention and focus. And then there are all sorts of beautiful interchangeable back covers too, so you can bring a little bit of personality to your phone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> All right, so now I was sent here actually by Michael Babcock to talk about accessibility. So his first question was, let&#8217;s talk about how TalkBack works with this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> It runs Android, so all of the accessibility screen reader and voiceover features will function. And the red button that you see there not only is a Clicks key for triggering shortcuts, but it also is a Tab key. So if you&#8217;re using the screen reader functionality to move through the different fields\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Like from heading to heading?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Yeah, you can move just using the button.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Oh, okay. That&#8217;s good. So obviously the red light is not going to help Michael know that he&#8217;s got an important message. Does it vibrate? Does it do anything else?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Yeah, there&#8217;s a great haptic feedback engine in there. And then of course, because it&#8217;s got speakers and other features, you can set up your audible notifications as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Okay, this sounds really cool. Now, it&#8217;s under glass, which means we probably can&#8217;t touch it yet. So do we know when it&#8217;s coming out and what it&#8217;s going to cost?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> It&#8217;s going to be released later this year, second half of 2026. The retail price is going to be $499 US, but we&#8217;ve got an early bird promotion going on right now where if you buy it for $399, you&#8217;ll get two additional back covers for free.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Okay. Well, this looks like it&#8217;s really catching the industry by storm. I&#8217;m still a little concerned about having two phone numbers if I don&#8217;t need two phone numbers and paying for that extra line. Those AT&amp;T bills are killing me already.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> I totally understand that. What we&#8217;re seeing from people who are pre-ordering the product already, because it&#8217;s been very popular, is that a lot of people are saying, you know what, this does everything that I need it to do as my one and only phone, so I&#8217;m going to use it as my primary. And we are fine with that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Yeah, those people are probably going to live healthier, longer lives.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Well, I wish them well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> All right, so if somebody wanted to find out about both of these products, where would they go?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> You can go to clicksphone.com on the Communicator and, for the Power Keyboard, clicks.tech\/powerkeyboard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> All right, very good. Thank you very much.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff:<\/strong> Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Allison interviews Jeff Gadway, CMO and Founder of Clicks, about their Clicks Power Keyboard, a MagSafe accessory that combines a battery pack with a slide-out physical keyboard. It works with various phone sizes and connects via Bluetooth to multiple devices, offering a tactile typing experience that some users find more accurate and engaging than touchscreens. 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