You’re photo here is a Lodgeson’s R207 with the “7” referring to it being 7 ways and is manufactured by the said company and not Jeff Gosling though they may or may not do something similar.
I’ve been using one of these since I became disabled back in 2008 and on my 5th one at a cost to myself in today’s prices of £2,400 and although the prices have been around about the £400 price the last 4 I’ve had, the first one was £750 after being told by the dealer it was £250 at the time of ordering.
I often thought about missing out the middle man with these adaptions but its not really worth your while because, one, there’s a hefty subsidy from MB and, two, MB insurers will not insure the MB car if it had adaptions fitted outside of the MB systems even if the adaption are fitted by the same recommended installer. It’s been a big negative for me and MY £2,400 (not to mention the cost of automatic gearboxes over the years) more so because they will not let you transfer these devices to the next car, again, because of insurance, so they tell me.
I might start putting a few feelers out over the next couple of years to have the Lodgeson device I have now removed from my current car and put in to a car of my own but this is only if AP’s keep going in the unsustainable directions.
Apart from that I have no qualms about the use of this adaptions as it has always worked without any problems for me using the steering ball. I drive with one hand so most of the time its on the steering ball where the button come easily to hand but if your driving with two hands I would think taking one hand off the wheel to press a button should be easy enough. The bit you see in the photo is as shown but there’s another part that has a receiver and electronics in a black box hidden behind the dash out of sight.
Only negatives I have is for some reasons the back light has never worked on any of my R207’s with the exception of the first one but its not a problem as I use the control without the need to look at what button I’m pressing. One other tiny niggle is the “horn” button is very small, I assume so not giving an accidental blast but when I do need to I often have to keep stabbing at it to get it to go by which time the hazard has passed.
4 of 5 of my MB cars have been VAG cars (Golf, Seat Leon, Golf, KIA Carens and Tiguan) and think these devices fit almost any car.