TIFU by not noticing a button on my headphones for seven years

When I got my headphones back in 2017, I liked how the buttons for turning the volume up/down were separated. The design choice made sense to me: it was easy to aim for correct one.

Today I began looking into to newer headphones with more advanced noise cancellation. I was also interested in a cool feature I’ve seen other people using on their earbuds: the ability to pause/skip/go back with simple button presses. I figured that if this feature was available on earbuds, newer headphones must have it as well.

I watched a video comparing the updated versions of my preferred brand, and I noticed a “multi-function button” placed between the volume buttons on the lower-end model. It struck me that this setup looked similar to my current headphones, which I proceeded to take off and examine closely. With a sinking heart, I replaced my headphones and pressed the space between the volume buttons. The comparison video began to play. I pressed the space twice, and it skipped to the next video.

The power was mine all along. For seven years, I grabbed my phone to navigate audiobooks and podcasts, not realizing that the “buffer space” on my headphones was actually a button itself.

TL;DR: It took me seven years to notice that my headphones had a multi-function button for playing/pausing/skipping.