7 Clip-On Gadgets That Sound Gimmicky But Are Actually Genius

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The term "clip-on" has developed a bit of a bad reputation. The clip-on versions of some things are often considered cheap or of inferior quality. Think of a clip-on tie or clip-on sunglasses. People think of these as half-hearted attempts at the real thing, with very mixed results.

So when we talk about clip-on gadgets, your first thought might be of cheap and gimmicky devices that are basically a waste of time and money. But sometimes, a temporary attachment is what makes something valuable in the first place. As long as it's executed well, being clip-on can be a strength, not a weakness.

Below, you'll find some clever clip-on gadgets that are easy to overlook as you're scrolling through your favorite online store. You might dismiss them as gimmicks you'd never actually use, but if you stop to think about what these convenient tech gizmos offer, you'll probably be tempted to at least give them a try.

Even if you bought one of the best webcams available, your actual videos won't look much better if you don't improve your lighting. Speak to professional photographers and videographers, and you'll hear the sentiment that lighting matters more than camera hardware in many cases, over and over. It's better to photograph a beautifully-lit scene with a mediocre camera than a poorly-lit scene with an expensive, high-quality model.

In reality, most of us don't have great web cameras and certainly don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on fancy models just to look a little better in a Zoom call, but you don't have to! All you need to do is upgrade your lighting with an affordable clip-on light like the NEEWER Basic 5" ring light pictured above, available for $29 on Amazon.

Even a simple model like this offers multiple lighting modes and light temperatures. Ring lights are ideal for portrait photography and talking-head videos, as the ring shape lights your face evenly from the front without harsh directional shadows. If you want to go even further, you can set up a fill light behind you to get that nice background separation you see in professional videos. For most average users, though, a single ring light clipped to your screen will do more for your video quality than a new camera at a fraction of the price.

Smartphone cameras have come a long way since those early models that could only take blurry, sub-megapixel photos that had you guessing at what the subject was supposed to be. Today, your phone can get some truly extraordinary results, but engineering high-quality cameras into something as thin as a phone comes with numerous challenges. There are many reasons why the camera on your phone isn't flat, and the physics of lenses is a big one. Adding an external lens can make a big difference.

Megapixels aren't the most important feature of a camera. A DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) with a good lens and half the megapixels will humiliate a smartphone camera shot-for-shot. Photography is literally the capture of light, and the lens is the instrument that collects, bends, and shapes that light before you capture it. Smartphones started having multiple lenses and sensors because no single fixed lens works for every type of photo you might want to take.

To get around these limitations, any serious smartphone photographer should consider investing in clip-on lens kits like the Xenvo Pro Lens Kit. Available for $39.99 on Amazon, this kit lets you add a true wide-angle lens to your smartphone (or tablet or laptop) using a literal clip. With just a pinch of your fingers, you can boost your phone's light-gathering abilities and capture more of the scene in front of you, and with added depth, to boot.

Bluetooth speakers are a massive, multi-billion-dollar market, and it's not hard to see why. Since most people in the world have some sort of device capable of sending Bluetooth audio, a compatible speaker is a versatile and genuinely useful thing to own. As good as smartphone speakers have become, they still can't compete with the audio quality and richness of even a small external speaker, and headphones aren't much use when more than one person needs to hear the sound.

Small portable Bluetooth speakers that have a clip-on feature are definitely handy to have as part of your kit. The JBL Clip series of speakers is a poster child for this type of speaker, and the JBL Clip 5 is the latest model as of this writing. First released in June 2024, the Clip 5 has been an Amazon customer favorite since the beginning, garnering a 4.8-star rating on the strength of nearly 8000 customer reviews. Expert reviews of the Clip 5 note that it's a decent improvement over the Clip 4.

The clip's built-in carabiner makes it easy to simply hang on a backpack, a hotel door, or inside a shower. Yes, it's completely waterproof (rated IP67), and who doesn't like listening to a podcast during their morning ablutions? Of course, these small speakers don't have stereo audio, and there's only so much volume you can get from something this size, but it's a speaker you'll be glad you remembered to pack.

Smartphones have advanced to the point where they're powerful multifunction computers and creative devices, with amazing cameras, graphics processing ability, and enough performance to meet the needs of just about anyone. At the same time, modern phones have also regressed somewhat in some areas. For example, smartphone makers stopped including headphone jacks, and the vast majority of phones also lost their SD card slots. This means that whatever storage your phone ships with is the amount of storage you'll have to live with until you buy the next one.

But phones now also have the ability to access storage via USB, which means you can plug in a thumb drive, or even a super-fast SSD (solid-state drive). Some serious videographers use this ability to record video directly to a connected SSD, making the amount of internal storage irrelevant and making it much easier to transfer that footage to, for example, a laptop used for video editing.

The SMALLRIG SSD magnetic phone mount bracket for SSDs pictured above is a great example of how you can make this type of shooting practical. By using a combination of magnetic attachment and a simple clamp, you can secure an SSD to your phone and concentrate on getting the perfect take, rather than managing an SSD hanging off the side of your phone.

There are lots of ways to attach headphones to the human head. Everyone knows about over-ear and on-ear headphones, of course, but in-ear buds have been a popular option for those who really need a compact headphone solution. When true wireless earbuds hit the market, the product category was a huge hit. AirPods have quickly become one of Apple's best-selling products, and that's a little surprising given that standard base-model AirPods don't actually form a seal with your ear canal. Instead, these buds are open, which is usually something audiophiles do not like, but the sales speak for themselves.

The thing is, if you're going to have an open-ear design anyway, why not invent a better way to keep those buds attached other than pure friction? That's what clip-on open-ear buds have done, and they offer a comfortable way to wear headphones all day that still allows you to hear what's going on around you.

Huawei's FreeClip headphones are to open-ear clip-ons what AirPods are to wireless buds, but due to Huawei sanctions in the USA, you won't find FreeClips through most mainstream retail channels. There are some great alternatives, though, like the SHOKZ OpenDots ONE or the Baseus Inspire XC1, which both adopt the comfortable weighted clip-on design that so many people who can't tolerate in-ear buds have grown to love.

Mobile gaming makes up around half of the global gaming market and brings in double the revenue of consoles. While hardcore gamers might not agree, statistically it's not a stretch to say that mobile gaming is the norm from the perspective of the average, casual player. And yet, mobile game controls are awful. With the exception of simple games that were designed to be touch-based from the start, most classic game genres are at the very least annoying to play using touch controls on your smartphone.

The answer is to use a physical controller with your phone. In the early days, this was pretty hit-and-miss, at least until Apple brought out the MFi standard for controllers on its platform, and eventually both iOS and Android got support for common controller standards used by the major consoles and PC. With the software side sorted, there's still the issue of how the controller interfaces with your phone. Sure, you can just use an Xbox controller, but that's hardly as ergonomic as a true handheld console.

One possible solution is to use something like the 8BitDo Mobile Gaming Clip with your existing controller to sort of Frankenstein something together, but that's not really a very mobile solution, despite the name. More handy is a clip-on controller for your phone, like the Backbone Pro, an integrated controller solution that attaches to a phone with ease ... though it's a little pricey (over $100 on Amazon). If you're mostly a retro gamer, the GameSir Pocket Taco above might genuinely be the coolest gosh-darn solution yet (at a more affordable $44.99).

There are lots of things that make intuitive sense to clip onto your computer monitor. A webcam, maybe even some speakers. But a desk lamp? That's basically what clip-on monitor lights are. Instead of illuminating your face for a video, these gadgets project light onto your desk so you can see your keyboard and mouse.

You might think that the light from your monitor(s) would be enough to do this job, but of course, that light fluctuates as the content on your screen changes. The idea behind these monitor lights is that you can get even lighting on your desk without the need to switch on the overhead lights. The light is designed in such a way that it doesn't shoot any photons at your screen itself, so you shouldn't see any glare or other issues a regular light or desk lamp might cause.

The BenQ ScreenBar Pro pictured above is highly regarded by both reviewers and users. It's also surprisingly pricey at $130, but you can't argue with its build quality or the results. Whether you like to work into the small hours of the morning, or you're just a gamer who likes to play in the dark but occasionally needs to see your desktop, a clip-on monitor light could be the answer you've been looking for.

To qualify for this list of clip-on gadgets, a device needs to meet a few minimum criteria to be considered. First, what does "clip-on" even mean? For our purposes, we defined it as something that can be removed or added to another object without making any permanent changes. The fastening method doesn't have to involve an actual clip, just some sort of temporary but functional attachment.

Next, we wanted to find clip-on gadgets that seem like they would be a bad idea, or just wouldn't work that well. Except, once you actually look at how people are using them, it turns out they're not only genuinely useful, but can actually make your life much better by solving real pain points. Finally, any specific examples we've listed have to have at least a 4-star (out of five) rating on Amazon from people who've bought and used them, and a clear recommendation from expert reviews, if there are any.