New $29 mini-controller keypad unveiled for $249 Sidephone, a modular dumb phone
Sidephone's newest swappable tile is now official: the Mini Controller Keypad. It is a gamepad-style accessory currently available to order at sidephone.com for $29. The tile ships in July 2026.
The new keypad follows the same modular, pogo-pin attachment system as Sidephone's earlier tiles and includes a 4-way directional pad, four face buttons (A, X, Y, B), a Select button, and a Start button. This classic layout should feel immediately familiar to anyone who grew up with a Game Boy or SNES controller. Like all Sidephone keypads, every button is remappable via the company's Key Mapper software.
To accompany the hardware, Sidephone has developed a pair of purpose-built Mini Games - Mini Asteroids and Mini Blocks. The company has plans to open up a community development environment for third-party games and apps as well. Longer-term ideas floated include GBA and arcade emulators, and universal smart remote functionality.
The announcement marks the fourth unique keypad tile Sidephone has revealed since its April 2025 debut. It joins the original T9 numeric keypad, the $29 Sundial media controller (an iPod-wheel-inspired tile for music playback), and the compact QWERTY tile unveiled last December. That breadth of input options is extremely central to Sidephone's pitch: a single $249 device that physically transforms depending on what you're doing.
The SP-01 itself — a 2.8-inch Android-based phone with a 12 MP camera and up to eight days of battery — began shipping to US Founders Edition backers in January 2026. Customers with pending orders can request the Mini Controller be added and bundled into a single July shipment by contacting support@sidephone.com.
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