The Sundarban
Published Feb 13, 2026, 6:00 PM EST
Ismar is a Senior Author at How-To Geek. He previously labored as a creator, editor, and overall manager at a voice material company forward of joining the How-To Geek team in 2023.
Ismar has been around Windows PCs since the age of three, so his company and family selected him as the resident tech enhance. His initiatives in overall involve tinkering, equivalent to disassembling mechanical keyboards and gaming mice to mod his loved tools. He furthermore enjoys pushing his hardware to the max by overclocking whereas staying on a cheap funds.
An avid gamer, Ismar has logged thousands of hours across varied genres, including first-particular person shooters, RPGs, car racing games, and roguelites.
When he’s no longer at his desk, he’s most seemingly exploring other folks’s phones to test up on their quirks and parts. He furthermore retains up with the latest tech and actively follows the latest AI trends.
He started his writing career in 2021 after winding up a BA in English Language and Literature. To protect up with his workload, he relies on as a lot as three cups of espresso a day. His admire for the beverage impressed him to do a weblog showcasing his popular espresso mugs.
Beyond How-To Geek, Ismar has contributed to Purple Stag Fulfillment and Authority Hacker. He has furthermore labored on varied search engine optimization initiatives to support clients enhance their search engine visibility.
In his free time, Ismar enjoys spending time with his partner, working out at the gymnasium, playing guitar and bass, cooking connoisseur meals, and touring. Nonetheless most necessary of all, he’s a proud cat proprietor.
Blank buttons are the bane of the automobile exchange. You know the ones that absorb house on your middle console but don’t if truth be told do one thing else. They’re diminutive better than a delicate reminder that you didn’t pay further for a characteristic, which is true another motive you might per chance well want to do away with them.
Nonetheless did you know there are hundreds of things you can do with these blank buttons? Whether your purpose is to magnificent them up visually or repurpose them for one thing purposeful, right here are some inventive techniques to position that blank button to appropriate exhaust.
Mount a knob or change to manipulate accessories
From your stereo to ambient lighting fixtures
One of the most attention-grabbing techniques to populate that blank button is to put in your possess button or knob and invent it support an eye on no topic you want. As an instance, if you maintain an aftermarket subwoofer and amp, you can exhaust the blank place to put in a potentiometer for adjusting your subwoofer.
If you maintain aftermarket ambient lighting fixtures, you can add a button to manipulate it—or tap into really appropriate one of your car’s inside lights. As an instance, you might per chance well want to protect the footwell lights on whereas riding but ride away the relaxation of the cabin dark.
If you want to protect your inside making an try manufacturing facility, try to supply an usual-vogue button that blends in. You can even paint over the usual icon or add a sticker to screen its outdated characteristic.
Install an LED for displaying stats
Another cool and simple blueprint to invent exhaust of blank buttons is to drill a diminutive gap and field an LED in the middle. You can then wire this LED to one thing else you want to video display—admire headlights or aftermarket daylight hours working lights.
As an instance, one Redditor modified the mountainous blank buttons in their A2 Volkswagen Jetta with lighted rocker switches to glimpse when the AC compressor, radiator fan, and headlights had been on. Preserve in tips, this outdated car didn’t even maintain a headlight-on warning LED in the instrument cluster, and as an different of an AC button with a steady, it outdated skool a climate support an eye on slider.
Install a abolish change
Straightforward blueprint to deter thieves
Credit rating: Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek
A DIY abolish change is really appropriate one of the cheapest and absolute most real looking techniques to forestall theft—or even stop an unruly youngster from taking your car without permission. You can wire the abolish change to your gasoline pump, ignition gadget, starter signal, ECU vitality, or any other well-known circuit that prevents the car from initiating or even cranking.
A blank button is the most attention-grabbing field to screen a abolish change. Through the use of an usual-vogue button in field of the blank, no person will suspect it’s one thing else better than a producing facility support an eye on, admire hill originate support or heated seats.
Aftermarket tire stress monitoring gadget
Excellent to maintain for the frigid weather months
Credit rating: Cory Gunther / How-To Geek
If you’ve got an aftermarket tire stress monitoring gadget (TPMS) or are moving about getting one but aren’t certain the place to mount it, support in tips using that blank slot in your middle console.
Becoming it admire an OEM portion will count on the dimension of the TPMS brand and the dimensions of your blank button, but the appropriate news is that some TPMS units are designed to be retrofitted in explicit cars. As an instance, this model from AliExpress is made to test certain Toyota and Mitsubishi autos.
If you maintain a 3D printer or know somebody who does, you might per chance per chance most seemingly internet a bracket to protect the TPMS unit in field of a blank button.
OBD-essentially based gauge or brand
Few things verbalize Rapidly & Infected somewhat admire aftermarket gauges.
Whether it’s oil stress or temperature, turbo enhance, coolant temperature, gasoline stress, or one thing else, folks in overall obtain a vogue to test a gauge in field of a blank button. Another time, a 3D printer comes in at hand—you can obtain pre-designed gauge pods, glimpse what dimension gauges the vogue designer outdated skool, and replicate the setup in your possess car.
Granted, gauges accrued must be gigantic ample to read without gather 22 situation whereas riding,
