Thanks everyone for the feedback so far.

I should have stated in my original post, that my main intention for use of a button compass was for quick general direction in big and/or unfamiliar cities (I used to travel 45-50 weeks per year) and woodlands (as backup).

In some of the larger cities, buildings will block and/or reflect the sun, making it difficult to tell direction quickly.

While I'm in relatively flat and deforested central Ohio now, eastern part of the state where I grew up is still quite green and has a lot of hills (foothills of the Appalachians) and it can be tough to get a bearing from the sun at times as it may be blocked by a hill or obscured by overcast skies.

One thing about Ohio, while it is relatively safe from most major natural disasters (knock on wood), I think many of you would be surprised how grey and overcast it is here, especially Fall through Spring, and more-so in the mid-latitude part of this state. We can go weeks where we may be lucky to get an hour total of the sun being clearly visibly in a day, and sometimes that's an hour or two per week.

I've had friends move south (Fla./Ga.) because they couldn't handle they seemingly continual grey skies here. As the DW and I get older, it's finally to get to us too. Looking forward to a day when we can at least turn into snowbirds.