PageFlip Firefly Page Turner

[arlo]

My collection of Bluetooth page turners is growing, with a Firefly unit that PageFlip sent me. PageFlip is one of the oldest manufacturers of these devices. Their Cicada model was available when I launched my first apps in 2010, and that was replaced by the Firefly a few years ago.

The Firefly is roughly the same size as similar products, with a good distance between the two switches to help avoid stepping on the wrong one. Each switch includes a plain white LED light to help find it in the dark; kudos to PageFlip for making this just the right brightness to be visible but not blinding. The white LEDs can also be turned off. The switches themselves track accurately and I never had to repeat a press when I tested it. The Firefly also has two jacks for external switches, so you can use your own foot switch boxes instead of the built-in switches, or add them for a total of four switches.

Unlike some of these products, the Firefly uses physical buttons and switches for most of its features, including power on/off, Bluetooth pairing reset and message mode (up/down, left/right, etc). There's no need to memorize sequences of keypresses to set this up. I turned mine on, pressed the Bluetooth Reset button to enter pairing mode, selected the Firefly in my Settings app (where it is listed as "Premium Pedal"), pressed the up/down mode button and was good to go.

Once you're connected, if you need to show the on-screen keyboard on your mobile device, you can press the current mode button on the Firefly. This will briefly break the connection to the mobile device, prompting it to show its keyboard.

One feature I haven't seen in any other product is the ability to connect either through Bluetooth or a USB cable. I tried both connection methods on iOS and Android with no trouble. The USB port can also power the device, as an alternative to the battery power.

The Firefly's price is comparable to other products with similar features; PageFlip also offers a Butterfly model with fewer features and a lower price, and a Dragonfly model with four buttons. You can order from Amazon here:

Dragonfly: https://amzn.to/2LR5kpz
Firefly: https://amzn.to/2OD1OgY
Butterfly: https://amzn.to/2Ay2iCd