Huh. This is something that I totally missed as being a product/service they offered. I can see how it would be useful and convenient, not necessarily lazy though.
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Amazon Launches Dash Buttons in Germany, Austria, and the U.K.
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Will Amazon delivery right to the toilet that has run out of paper.... same day.....
I just ordered one for Ariel. Nope you can't order more than once, there is a protection feature which prevents you ordering more than one until your first order arrives.I can already see the surprised parents after their kid orders 1 thousand rolls of toilet paper
I have about 10 of them and use them constantly. When you live in a large city with no "superstores" and most of your shopping is done by walking AND most things are more expensive locally than on Amazon... these make a lot of sense.
For instance: Simple Human trash bags are a HUGE pain. I have to drive across town in crazy traffic to BBAB and pay an obscene amount for them. So: invariably I put it off and put it off until I run out completely which is even more annoying.
Now: when I open the last pack I simply hit the Dash Button that is right where the bags are stored. I never run out and it saves me money.
Next year we'll be moving back to a small town with TWO Wal-marts and I suspect that we won't use our dash buttons much anymore.
My thought process on these is this..
Take a piece of paper and stick all of the buttons to it and stash it away in a drawer somewhere. Whenever you need something just go push a button for it in the drawer and go on with your life. I agree I wouldn't want them sticking everywhere around the house. Hide them somewhere, but somewhere convenient. Seems like a neat idea for detergent, toilet paper, tooth paste, or just things you need frequently but ALWAYS forget when you're at the store haha. Just my .02
Take a piece of paper and stick all of the buttons to it and stash it away in a drawer somewhere. Whenever you need something just go push a button for it in the drawer and go on with your life. I agree I wouldn't want them sticking everywhere around the house. Hide them somewhere, but somewhere convenient. Seems like a neat idea for detergent, toilet paper, tooth paste, or just things you need frequently but ALWAYS forget when you're at the store haha.
Just my .02Out of all of the criticisms of Dash this has to be the dumbest one I've heard. If you don't want them where people can see them... don't put them there.
I own several of these... but no one that comes to my house would ever see them. They are:
- In the pantry (paper towels, paper plates, bottled water, etc.)
- Underneath the kitchen sink (trash bags, dish washer detergent)
- IN the vanity in the bathroom (my razors, her razors, chap stick)
- In the laundry room (detergent, etc.)
All "hidden"... but also right where they need to be so that when you notice you're running low on something you can just hit the button. Simple.
This is exactly how they were intended to be used I believe too
I'll be getting some whenever I get into my new home next month 
How are they "junk"?
Maybe you meant: "More useful buttons that are stuck on the side of cupboards... conveniently small and out of the way"
A while ago I noticed that they actually have a Dash button for Nerf. I really don't know what they send you when you press it, but my best guess is those foam bullets that Nerf guns shoot. But then, has Nerf homogenized their foam bullet lineup so that all of their guns shoot the same type now? Or have I gone all these years without noticing that every one of their guns shoots the exact same bullet? And finally, am I the only one that just picks up the bullets and reuses them instead of buying new ones after every shot?
On initial setup, it communicates with the Amazon app on your phone. As I recall, it actually has an (essentially one-time use) microphone for listening to ultrasonic frequencies - you put the phone next to it, and the app sends it a message, just the one time, with the details it needs to get on your network. It uses that to check in with Amazon (likely to associate button serial# foo with account bar and product# baz). During the setup process, you are also asked what specific variant of a product you want when the button is pressed (diet or regular, chocolate or vanilla, etc.). After that, it sits in extremely low power mode until the button is pressed, then it wakes up the main circuitry, which negotiates use of your network (authentication, DHCP, etc.), makes a connection to Amazon, and says, "yep, I'm button serial# foo and I've been pressed", and Amazon can look it up to find the associated account and product and place the order. It also lights an LED for a while. If I recall correctly, it's like their "one click" ordering - you push the button, then you have a 30 minute window to cancel before the order takes effect. I think the LED may stay lit until the window ends (don't recall exactly). And multiple presses in that window won't have any additional effect (actually, maybe it isn't until after the product is delivered). You can go into the order online and change the quantity and such, but if you were doing that, you could have just ordered online. So, it's a very mild convenience, basically. They're basically betting that giving you one for free that you put next to the laundry detergent will make it more likely that you'll press the button to order detergent from them when you find you're running low, rather than adding it to a shopping list to pick up at the store at some future time.
I have one, ordered as a curiosity, used once (so far), not taken apart (so far). It cost $5 and you get $5 off the first time you use it, so it's essentially "free". A lot of smart people have taken them apart and poked around the insides (it is worth googling for "amazon dash teardown", interesting stuff). Most of what is inside is an Energizer Lithium AAA battery, along with an ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller and a Broadcom WiFi radio. Some of those smart folks have also monitored and detailed the various communication processes. Worth googling if you're even mildly interested in the tech.
Dash buttons (any of them) don't only order 1 type of item. They can all be programmed to order any of a set of items from that manufacturer. For instance... for the NERF Dash Button this is the list:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_...4cf-0eb5-4de6-9e4d-7f6f83467b06&suppress-ve=1
So you would just assign the type of NERF ammo you need to the button.
This is useful because you can get multiple of the same "type" of button and order different things. For instance: in my house we have two Gillette Dash Buttons. One is set to order my razors... one is set to order my wife's razors (each button is stuck to the side of our respective shelves in our vanity in our bathroom to keep them straight ;-)
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You did not answer if the setup displays the MAC address. It is not written on the back.
Also: if you're just in it for the tech Amazon makes a variant of the button just for that: https://www.amazon.com/AWS-IoT-Butt...1-fkmr1&keywords=cottonelle+dash+programmable
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Not just the parts cost, it'd blow the power budget. It runs, for its lifetime, off one non-replaceable AAA battery, and it uses practically no power until the button is pressed, at which time it wakes up for just a few seconds, to send one message. That isn't likely more often than once a week, and more typically probably once a month. Even though e-ink can display for a very long time without power, what you suggest would mean having the device polling Amazon likely at least daily, to get the latest price, plus the additional power spent on rewriting the display each time the price changes (not to mention the inevitable lawsuits when the number displayed didn't match the current price because it hadn't updated in 18 hours). This would reduce the device's useful life from years to months, at which point it wouldn't be cost effective (if it lasted 3 months, and you used it 3 times, that's ballpark $7 worth of parts, plus paying to ship it to you, to get you to purchase a single item 3 times, that you might have purchased from Amazon anyway - not a very good return for them).
It could be: first press: display price - second press: order
If you use your phone on the toilet then it is covered in faeces and you should go and wash it immediately and stop that dirty habit!And anyway, who is going to reach around to press the "Andrex button" when they surely already have their phone in their hand?
"When you flush the toilet, water with feces and urine sprays about six feet in every direction"
https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineke...throom-rn?bftw&utm_term=.ejeO7P44Z#.qdgJ6DjjW
I don't recall. I don't think it did. I did explain the communication process in general and point out that numerous smart people have documented the whole communication process online. Armed with that information, I expect you're probably capable of googling it yourself.
Amazon doesn't go out of their way to tell the consumer that the thing even has a MAC address (the vast majority of people wouldn't have any idea what that is). They want it to be a device where you run the app on your phone, put it near your new Dash Button and it Just Works. If I recall correctly, I got the MAC address of mine by querying my Airport base station during/after the initial setup. It identified itself to the Airport's DHCP server as "WICED DHCP Client" (WICED being the WiFi/IoT platform that Cypress recently acquired from Broadcom).
If your concern is that it won't work because you're restricting access by MAC address, then loosen the screws enough temporarily for it to talk to the DHCP server, and see what address the DHCP server logs (the button needn't talk to Amazon at this point, just get far enough onto your internal network to ask for an address). They you can screw things back down and add the MAC address to your access list. Not rocket science.
Hah, thank you for this information, though to be honest, I was mostly just trying to point out the ridiculousness of this particular Dash button. If anyone is going through Nerf bullets at such a rate that they need a handy button nearby to replenish their stock on a regular basis, I'd say they are at the very least, using Nerf guns entirely wrong.
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Part of the setup process for the Dash Button, once you have it in hand, is pinning it down to the precise thing you want to order. For example, the one I bought was for Starbucks Doubleshots (tiny cans of wakefulness). During the setup process, it asked if I wanted the "regular" or "lite" variant, and there may have been a question about quantity. I expect they do the same for any product, so, in your Nerf case, it probably is for things considered expendable (bullets, etc.), but they probably offer choices, upon setup, for each type that Amazon sells, so you can choose the right one for your gun.
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It could, although a large part of Amazon's goal is get you to Just Do It right at the point where it occurs to you that you need more of item X. The same way that credit card companies allow for purchases without a signature for small amounts, because they figure that the more "frictionless" they make the transaction, the more likely you are to a) make the purchase right then, and b) go with their method vs. some other. If Amazon gives you a display of the current price, then you're going to compare that against other sources, which means, what, likely you're going to look up other prices on your phone - at which point they've already lost the advantage, because maybe you'll buy from someone else, and if you do buy from Amazon at that point, you could just as easily do it from the phone in your hand rather than walking back over to push the button. The point of the Dash Button is, for an item where you trust that Amazon's price is decent (whether or not it's the best price), they get your attention right at the moment you find you're low on laundry detergent, and you can push the button right then, instead of having to remember "low on laundry detergent" while finishing the task at hand and then either opening the right app to type it in or (old school) scribbling it on a shopping list somewhere (and then proceeding with the necessary followup of going to the store at some point with list in hand and buying the things). They figure if the button is right there where you notice you're low on the thing, you're likely to just push the button and be done with it.
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As I recall, upon receiving the button, you have to do initial setup using the iOS (or Android) Amazon app. So there is some (admittedly weak) tie-in to the Apple ecosystem. Plus, it's interesting technology. Would you prefer another story about watchbands instead?"Mac" rumors?