Amazon Dash (necro)

[Rakehellion]

I'd honestly be surprised if it's an April Fool's joke. The technology is there (BT 4.0 LE, Zwave Plus, etc.) - a lot of smarthome window/door sensors have 6 or 12 month battery lives. And really, this addresses one of my barriers to using Prime - I have to remember to order stuff using it, which involves pulling out my phone, going into the app, finding it, blah blah blah. If I'm doing laundry & running low on detergent, it'd be awesome to simply push a button & have a refill show up 2 days later. Make it convenient & I will use it!

Considering all the other crap they've come up with recently to shove Prime down our throats (Echo, Fire Phone, Fire TV) this one's actually half useful.

 

[CraKaJaX]

But that doesn't solve the problem of remembering whether or not you already pressed the button yesterday.

Saw on the news this morning that once you press the button, you get an email to confirm your order... problem solved? 😛

 

[Lonyo]

I'd honestly be surprised if it's an April Fool's joke. The technology is there (BT 4.0 LE, Zwave Plus, etc.) - a lot of smarthome window/door sensors have 6 or 12 month battery lives. And really, this addresses one of my barriers to using Prime - I have to remember to order stuff using it, which involves pulling out my phone, going into the app, finding it, blah blah blah. If I'm doing laundry & running low on detergent, it'd be awesome to simply push a button & have a refill show up 2 days later. Make it convenient & I will use it!

Well Amazon Dash has been around since last year anyway, with a "wand" where you scan a barcode to order, so it's not an April Fools overall, the button is the element which could be.

Also, like you say, the tech is already there, and for this specifically, battery like can be near-infinite. The only time the battery needs to use power is when you press the button to order. There is zero reason at all that the button would need to be even in standby.

The way I would think it would be set it up would be to have something that plugs in to the router, a main box, which then receives a signal from any buttons around the house, which send an instruction over BT or similar. That box then handles the sending of the request from however many buttons there are, as it keeps things simple and therefore keeps the incremental cost of any new buttons to a minimum, since the main box is the only complex bit.

Then your button just sends a BT signal when, and only when, activated by a press, which means the rest of the time it's using zero power. Near infinite battery life given how often you would be pressing the button for most things.
The only thing using power would be the main box connected to the router, which wouldn't be battery powered.

 

[CraKaJaX]

was it an April fool?

no. been to amazon today? 😵

http://www.amazon.com/

 

[IronWing]

no. been to amazon today? 😵

http://www.amazon.com/

Celebrating 20 years as the messiest frontpage on the internet!

 

[Kaido]

Well Amazon Dash has been around since last year anyway, with a "wand" where you scan a barcode to order, so it's not an April Fools overall, the button is the element which could be.

Also, like you say, the tech is already there, and for this specifically, battery like can be near-infinite. The only time the battery needs to use power is when you press the button to order. There is zero reason at all that the button would need to be even in standby.

The way I would think it would be set it up would be to have something that plugs in to the router, a main box, which then receives a signal from any buttons around the house, which send an instruction over BT or similar. That box then handles the sending of the request from however many buttons there are, as it keeps things simple and therefore keeps the incremental cost of any new buttons to a minimum, since the main box is the only complex bit.

Then your button just sends a BT signal when, and only when, activated by a press, which means the rest of the time it's using zero power. Near infinite battery life given how often you would be pressing the button for most things.
The only thing using power would be the main box connected to the router, which wouldn't be battery powered.

Yeah, I think a central box would make more sense, kind of like what the Philips Hue lights use. Because while it'd be easy to pair to your phone via Bluetooth, and could be done power-wise with BT 4.0 LE, then you'd be stuck hitting a button & not getting any payoff if you've synced it to your wife's phone but not yours, or else you'd have to multi-pair or something - that would get confusing.

But honestly it's a great idea. I usually order the same brands & I'm not always smart enough to buy a bunch at once, so having a button to push with a colorful, visual logo right in front of me at the work site (kitchen, laundry, etc.) would be spiffy :thumbsup:

 

[Leros]

Celebrating 20 years as the messiest frontpage on the internet!

They methodically test their UI changes. I guarantee you that their UI choices, however unpleasing to the customer's eye, maximizes whatever metrics they care about.

 

[IronWing]

They methodically test their UI changes. I guarantee you that their UI choices, however unpleasing to the customer's eye, maximizes whatever metrics they care about.

I recall an article a few years ago that claimed that Jeff Bezos maintains personal control of Amazon's frontpage, that it didn't matter what makes sense, Jeff gets what Jeff wants.

 

[Leros]

I recall an article a few years ago that claimed that Jeff Bezos maintains personal control of Amazon's frontpage, that it didn't matter what makes sense, Jeff gets what Jeff wants.

I have a very hard time believing that.

The front page is too critical to their revenue and they have so much data to make really good decisions from. It would be absolutely asinine to not test the front page and I have to imagine that they have enough smart employees who would flip their shit if it wasn't being tested.

 

[IronWing]

I have a very hard time believing that.

The front page is too critical to their revenue and they have so much data to make really good decisions from. It would be absolutely asinine to not test the front page and I have to imagine that they have enough smart employees who would flip their shit if it wasn't being tested.

Here is the thread where the story is linked.

 

[purbeast0]

i just got my first dash today. when i went to order protein powder the other day they advertised one for protein powder. i always tend to order my protein powder like when it's really low and sometimes miss a day or two without it. this should make it a lot easier now that i can literally press a button when i see i only have a couple days left and it will just arrive in a few days.

 

[clamum]

I'd like to pick up one or two of those dash buttons but I don't really go through things very fast to make it much of a point to use one. I'd say toilet paper and bottled water would be the main things that would be useful to have a button for, maybe a couple others, but I'm not sure of the TP I use (I usually get what's on sale, so it can vary) and the bottled water I buy is Great Value Walmart brand.