Before you cable up a panel or hand one to an operator, Buttons can tell you immediately whether it's a model it knows how to drive, so you find out during discovery, not partway through building a Position around it. Buttons doesn't publish a separate compatibility list for this: the product itself is the up-to-date source, because the set of supported panels and integrations grows as Bitfocus adds drivers for new hardware.
Before you begin#
- Enough access to Connect → Surface to view discovered devices (read access to Surfaces). Adopting a supported device or creating one manually needs create permission, see Add and attach a surface.
- Checking compatibility doesn't use a license slot; only adopting a device does.
Every surface Buttons can drive (hardware panel, iPad, browser view, or third-party integration) comes from a model it ships a driver for. That set of models isn't fixed: it grows as Bitfocus builds support for new hardware, so a device that isn't supported today can become supported in a later release. Because of that, the definitive list lives in two places in the product itself rather than in a document that would drift out of date:
- The Add surface dialog, for models you create directly (such as an iPad Mini, a Custom Web View, or a USB Relay), grouped by manufacturer.
- The Discovered surfaces list, for hardware and third-party devices Buttons finds automatically on the network or over USB and matches to a model by its identifiers.
A device Buttons can see but doesn't have a driver for isn't hidden: it's shown with a clear Not supported indicator, so you know it was detected rather than missed.
Check a device you've already connected#
- Open Connect → Surface.
- Select Discovered surfaces.
- Find the panel by its hostname, network address, serial number, or detected model.
Each row shows what Buttons detected. A supported device can be selected and adopted normally, see
Discover and adopt a hardware surface. An unsupported one carries a red
Not supported badge and, next to its detected model name,
Cannot be adopted. Hovering the row shows
"This device is not supported by Buttons."Note
If you select several discovered devices at once and any of them are unsupported, both Adopt and Adopt → Create Position stay disabled (with a tooltip stating how many selected devices can't be adopted) until you deselect the unsupported ones. There's no way to force-adopt an unsupported device or assign it a different model as a substitute.
Check a model before you connect it#
For surfaces you add rather than discover (an iPad Mini, a Custom Web View, or a USB Relay), open Connect → Surface → Add and look through the models grouped by manufacturer (for example, Buttons, Apple, and Elgato, with more added over time). If a model doesn't appear there and doesn't show up in Discovered surfaces once connected, treat it as unsupported for this release.
If you're planning a purchase or an installation before you have access to a running Buttons system to check yourself, confirm compatibility with Bitfocus directly rather than guessing from a panel's age or spec sheet: the supported-model set is a product decision that changes between releases.
If you get stuck#
What you see | What to try |
|---|
The discovered panel says Not supported. | Don't adopt it as a different model: that isn't possible. Check Add for the current list of models you can create directly, or confirm compatibility with Bitfocus. |
A mixed selection of discovered devices won't adopt. | Deselect any device marked Not supported: bulk adoption is blocked while even one selected device can't be adopted. |
A panel you expected to see isn't in Discovered surfaces at all. | Confirm it's powered, connected, and reachable before assuming it's unsupported, see the discovery troubleshooting in Add and attach a surface. |
Where to go next#
