holy molly…
https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-button
will they be hacked :)… maybe that’s the answer to why the ESP8266 is cheap, could it be inside these?
Edit: did I mention they are FREE…
Jay.
2 Likes
Interesting. Requested an invitation.
Interesting from an IoT perspective, but this seems like it wouldn’t scale very well. I can imagine a massive amount of clutter created by these things.
Guessing that this will go over just about as well as the Fire Phone with it’s “scan and buy” at the forefront. It’s a transparent effort to get people to buy more from Amazon, rather than something that really increases convenience. I mean, it’s just not that hard to order from the Amazon app or web site.
From a technology standpoint, the only mention of Wi-Fi I’m seeing is connecting your phone to your home Wi-Fi network, so my guess is that these must use BTLE. Given the size, that would make a heck of a lot more sense than these tags being Wi-Fi enabled (which would also be extraordinarily stupid from a security and energy consumption standpoint).
So my guess would be either BTLE alone, or possibly BTLE + NFC to make it easier to pair.
Either way, while it’s an interesting idea from a technical standpoint, I have zero interest as a consumer.
The only significant thing that might interest me is other uses for the technology, as they hint at towards the bottom of the page.
So kudos to Amazon for trying something interesting. But I would not be surprised if this has the same fate as Firefly (I think that was the “shut up and take my money” camera feature on the Fire Phone). 
actually it would work as wifi enabled better than BLE, and I think it is WIFI and here is how it will operate (my guess)…
You press the button, it wakes up connects sends the request to a cloud based server goes to deep sleep…cloud server send a push to your app phone.
operating as the above means it will be offline most of the time hence you can’t hack something that you can’t reach :), and it will save power and last a very long time…
of course this is just my guess 
Cheers,
Jay
@ Jay Jay - Let’s assume you’re correct, and it’s Wi-Fi.
Would love to be a fly on the wall when the average non-techie tries to configure one of these on the Wi-Fi.
And if I was a black hat, I’d be signing up for an invite to see just how secure these are.
But ultimately, IMO, it’s less about how it connects than this being another bite at the same apple that Firefly attempted.
Perhaps it will succeed, and even if it fails, perhaps Amazon will move IoT forward with the initiative. For that reason, it’s interesting, even if I wouldn’t want one in my home.
This is April fools, but amazing idea!
I suppose that’s possible, but given that it’s not yet April 1, I’m skeptical. :snooty:
@ Gus - It is possible 
it is April 1 in some parts of the world already !
Aprill Fools!
:dance:
They said it is real.
I saw an engadget article that said it was real also…
Good greif. The April fool’s has gotten so pervasive on the internet that even real products get mistaken for pranks (I think). I think it may be a TI CC3200 inside or something. Honestly I can’t bring myself to consider using that kind of compute power for something like that. I’d just prefer to have a tablet mounted on the fridge that takes orders when I see I’ve EATEN THE LAST OF SOMETHING!!!
@ Mr. John Smith - That would be too late to order.
EDIT: Yea it prob isn’t a TICC3200; it’s prob the ESP
A product specific “button” makes no sense to me. I am still thinking it is April 1.
It would be a really elaborate April Fool’s prank, and would require all of the companies whose brands are used on the page to be in on the joke. Given that, I’m leaning towards believing it’s real, and given past efforts from Amazon to lower the friction for purchasing to absurd levels (Firefly button), it’s in keeping with what has been done.
And if it’s real, it’s ridiculous. The last thing we need at this point is a bunch of onesie-twosie Wi-Fi devices all over the house, creating potential holes in our network security.
Again, assuming this thing is for real, there are many unanswered questions. Perhaps rather than using an access point, it uses Wi-Fi Direct. If so, that’s arguably less problematic, security-wise, but there are still many other questions, such as:
[ol]What happens when the battery runs down?
What happens if you change phones?
What happens if your phone is turned off when you press the button?[/ol]
Now FWIW, I didn’t think the Amazon drone effort was for real, though it certainly seems as if they’re investing real money in at least figuring out whether that’s viable. That effort, at least, has real potential to provide faster delivery for customers (though I’d imagine that UPS and FedEx probably hate the idea), and save Amazon money. I really don’t see much advantage in the Dash button for customers…it’s just not saving that much effort.
I’m still hoping that Amazon fesses up and says it’s a prank…I don’t want our IoT future to be this stupid. :snooty:
@ devhammer - Nobody is forcing it on you, just don’t use it if you don’t like it.
They testing the grounds, they also interested in other makers and innovators integrating the amazon service that dash uses into their products. Dash is just an example what is possible, that may or may not succeed on its own.
For example Samsung washers with the button (physical or through their UI) that will order laundry consumables from Amazon.
@ devhammer -
Also, the news release says it only registers one push until the product arrives. What, is every shipment going to have an RFID tag that one has to take to the button?
@ suitable1 - No; they just ignore repeated presses until the parcel carrier updates the tracking number to say “delivered”.