
Amazon will pull the plug on dash buttons - blumomo
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-will-pull-the-plug-on-dash-buttons-at-the-end-of-august-2019-08-01
======
sct202
I never really got the point of them since they were usually for things that
stored really well and get used up at a relatively constant rate so it's
usually not a surprise when you run out, so like why would I need to rush and
blindly push the button to buy more detergent/toothpaste of a certain brand
without knowing the price when I'd just eventually buy it in my normal
shopping run/order.

~~~
jfengel
The goal was to reduce friction in the purchase. You had to walk to a
computer, bring up Amazon, look up the product, click the version of it you
want, and push "one click order" (or maybe two or three more clicks) -- that's
a lot of opportunity for you to just add it to your shopping list and just buy
it at the grocery store.

Or from your point of view, that's a lot of effort for a product that you
already know you want. If you're busy doing laundry, you want to keep doing
that, rather than stop and order detergent, or risk forgetting it in the next
five minutes (and then not having it the next time). The price is somewhat
variable, but the variation is likely below your threshold of caring.

These aren't huge costs, but it's very much web-UX thinking: people have very
short memories (and attention spans) and even a single extra click is an
opportunity for people to change their minds or get distracted. If your
washing machine came with an infinite supply of detergent, or your cat food
canister were infinitely deep, your life would be a tiny bit better. If they
knew the cost were comparable to other sources, many people would take that
deal without worrying too much about whether the exact price.

That's Amazon's schtick. They make your life a tiny bit better and take a tiny
profit on that. It works only if they can get that tiny profit on basically
everything you buy. Everything everyone buys.

They've since discovered other ways. As you say, you know the rate at which
these things get used up, so it's even better for them to just replace the
button with a recurring order.

~~~
dheera
One problem with their approach IMO is there was no direct feedback on when
you would actually receive the product both before AND after you press the
button.

You don't know if the toilet paper is going to arrive the same day, next day,
2 days, or 2 business days. Many times if you know beforehand it's going to
take 2 days to get toilet paper you'd just run to the grocery store instead.

Not just toilet paper -- even with shampoo, body wash, kitchen soap, laundry
detergent, kitchen sponges, I'm usually unaware I'm running out until it
actually runs out, and with most of these things I can't wait 2 days. I also
live 2 blocks from a 24-hour Safeway so it's not actually an issue.

~~~
ericd
These things all keep well, so I just keep extras and order when I have to
start using my last one, so it doesn’t really matter how long shipping takes.
For me, the worst part of dashes was that Amazon didn’t keep the exact same
thing in stock for the exact same price, and sometimes it’d be a very
different price if it had to fall back to a 3rd party seller. So I usually
ended up checking and then ordering on the computer anyway.

------
mtmail
Amazon was no longer allowed to sell them in Germany earlier this year.
Consumer protection agency said the button isn't a clear enough buying
agreement (here payment forms need to make clear it costs money to click,
exact price, what you buy). Amazon allowed itself to change the product, e.g.
amount of washing liquid.

~~~
gwbas1c
In the US, I looked at them with a high degree of skepticism. How do I know
that I'm getting the same product, at the best price?

In the US, quite frequently the same product is sold in different packaging,
and the best price often varies between the packaging. Sometimes the 20-pack
of toilet paper is cheapest. Sometimes the 30-pack is cheapest.

Besides, on the mobile app, it doesn't take that long to figure out the best
deal.

------
reaperducer
I had a few, but stopped using them because the pricing was erratic.

Push a button for pistachios, and a pound bag shows up for $8.99.

Push the same button two weeks later, and get charged $17.99.

I liked the idea, though. It would have been good if it had been incorporated
into the whole Whole Foods thing.

~~~
bduerst
A simple solution would have been an e-ink screen that listed the price per
unit/press, but that probably would have increased button costs by an order of
magnitude.

Also more users probably would become aware of price variance (as you have)
and changed their shopping habits, which is not good for business.

~~~
fragmede
The simpler solution, is to just not price-gouge customers and hope they don't
notice, while trying to build a subscription-based business.

If Amazon isn't able to offer any level of price stability, then don't offer
the subscription. Toilet paper is convenient to get on a subscription basis,
but that convenience isn't worth paying $5/roll.

~~~
bduerst
Definitely. It would be amazing if they offered subscription with price lock-
in and a preset range lockout (i.e. if current price reaches 4x subscription
lock price the subscription is suspended until price goes down).

They will lose some money but they'd also gain money from people afraid to
drop subscriptions (e.g. gym subscription model).

------
dfeojm-zlib
Amazon's :CueCat

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat)

[https://hackaday.com/tag/dash-button/](https://hackaday.com/tag/dash-button/)

~~~
grendelt
Those CueCat scanners were a great way to scan used textbooks when I was
selling them in college. They just magically spit out a text string followed
by a <CR> when scanning a barcode. They were going for dirt cheap on eBay for
a number of years.

In college, on finals week I'd get $100-200 cash and go to the bookstore. I'd
hear they were buying back certain popular textbooks for next to nothing. I'd
offer the seller $10 cash right there on the spot. "Sell to them or sell to
me, it's the same price. Here's a $10 bill." After getting a stack of those
(or when profs were cleaning out their bookshelves), I'd lug them home, scan
with my CueCat and sell them for a substantial markup on half.com (RIP). One
semester I found a stack of books outside faculty offices labeled "free" \-
sold those for $500 that weekend.

------
walrus01
For anyone interested in weird low cost embedded devices, I suggest googling
for Amazon dash button teardowns. There's some interesting choices made in
their components and spec.

[https://mpetroff.net/2016/07/new-amazon-dash-button-
teardown...](https://mpetroff.net/2016/07/new-amazon-dash-button-teardown-
jk29lp/)

[https://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4460866/Teardown--
Design...](https://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4460866/Teardown--Designing-
the-second-generation-Amazon-Dash-Button-)

There is also this thing, the Amazon wand:

[https://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4460319/Teardown--
Amazon...](https://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4460319/Teardown--Amazon-Dash-
Wand-with-Alexa)

------
michaelbuckbee
I've no real love for the intended use of the dash buttons (re-orders of
items) but do hope that some other company comes up with a similarly easily
hackable wireless button for interactions.

~~~
phlowbieuq
As of now, Amazon appears to still be selling their "IOT button" (which is
basically a programmable dash button)

[https://aws.amazon.com/iotbutton/](https://aws.amazon.com/iotbutton/)

~~~
ihuman
The $15 "1st Generation AWS IoT Button" is out of stock, but the $20 "AWS IoT
Enterprise Button" is still in stock. Is there a difference besides the label?

~~~
pmlnr
AWS IoT Enterprise Button creates a JIRA ticket and sends approval requests as
well. /s

~~~
anbop
This is the first thing I’ve ever upvoted on Hacker News

------
mttjj
I think I've had 3 physical buttons since they were introduced. Only used one
of them one time. It was a novel idea but never really caught on.

I'm sure Amazon would rather you just ask Alexa to order things for you now
anyway.

------
jpm_sd
These were the ":CueCat" of 2015.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat)

I wonder what today's equivalent is?

~~~
magic_beans
Today's equivalent is scanning a QR code with your phone.

~~~
libria
(following this tangent) My impression of QR's problem was:

1) High ergonomics barrier; the user needed to install a QR app from the
appstore or find the icon for it and start it.

2) People who are not on HN don't know what it is anyway.

Now that it's built in to most Android/iPhone cameras, #1 is solved. Now that
#1 is solved, #2 is self-solving.

QR gets a lot of jank but when I use it, it's very handy.

------
TillE
It was always baffling to make non-trivial custom hardware in an age of
universal smartphone ownership.

Does Amazon even have any good apps? Seems like easy subscription management
and re-ordering is something they could do there.

~~~
nerdjon
Amazon already has their Subscribe and Save program.

I actually really liked the dash buttons for those items that I did not use as
regularly, but the number of items like that are pretty low to warrant having
more than 2 or 3 of these things.

Then when I rebuilt my wireless network I just did not care to move them over.

~~~
maxerickson
Really liking them and abandoning them anyway is a pretty solid indictment of
the idea.

~~~
nerdjon
I will say this is an issue with iot devices in general right now.

When I rebuilt my wireless network, every smarthome device has to be modified
and that was the worst part about it.

At least these were basically free anyways (you bought them for $5 and then
got a $5 credit on your first purchase with them) so I did not feel a need to
switch them over.

------
donatj
I’m probably alone but I’m pretty bummed about this. I regularly used them to
order detergent and Clorox wipes when we were getting low. Haven’t been fully
out of either in a couple years.

How much work would it honestly be for them just to keep the existing ones
going.

~~~
pmlnr
"Alexa, add X to my shopping list"

~~~
Touche
Well you can directly buy the same products with Alexa, which is what I'll
probably do.

------
iwalton3
I wonder if anyone has gotten the Wi-Fi pairing process to work outside of the
Amazon app. Otherwise, you can't change your wireless password without
bricking any buttons you might be misusing for other DIY uses after Amazon
kills support.

------
I_am_neo
Relegated to the parts bin. Usefulness perhaps in a second life...
[https://hackaday.com/tag/amazon-dash-
button/](https://hackaday.com/tag/amazon-dash-button/)

------
spookthesunset
Biggest problem I had with them is the products you could order were hard
coded to the device itself. If the product you want to order doesn't have its
own dash button, the whole system was useless.

------
asd
Surely they will announce a Dash button recycling program. Right?

Edit: Read rest of article and have my answer. Sorry! Don’t spank me.

~~~
gmoore
it was announced in the article!

------
k__
They are ahead of their time.

If I pressed one and <1h delivery would happen it would be great.

But we aren't there yet.

------
PascalW
Does anyone know of any programmable alternatives that are not tight to AWS?

------
aiddun
Makes sense with the ubiquity of Alexa/Echos in homes. Why quantize consumer
selection to a finite number of items when one can be able to order anything
with the same seamlessness.

------
esotericn
I don't understand the appeal behind ordering something without knowing the
price.

The only thing I ever buy without knowing the cost is a drink in a pub, and
that's some sort of strange anachronism.

And in that situation, if the bartender turns around and tells me 25 quid or
whatever after pouring it, I'd just walk off.

The economy doesn't work properly if you just blindly pay whatever.

~~~
tzs
A lot of the products seem to be small household items, like razor blades,
trash bags, water filters, and the like, that when you run out you are (1)
probably going to want to replace with the same brand, (2) probably don't want
to put off replacing to wait for a bargain, and (3) probably will still buy
even if the price is a little more than the last time, but within the normal
Amazon price variation.

Also, according to their documentation, pressing the button queues the order
and sends you an email, which includes price information. You can cancel the
order before it ships. I'd expect that the normal flow for most people is to
press the button when they notice they are running out of something, and then
check the order details when they next deal with email.

~~~
astura
This seems incredibly non-optimal on a few levels.

I rarely buy small household items at full price, just wait until my brands go
on sale or I have a coupon to buy several. They go on sale often enough that I
almost always have items in the house. I probably have a five year supply of
razors at my house, they take up basically no room. If I need something right
away I'll put it on the grocery list and pick it up next time I go to the
grocery store.

On top of that I don't really believe in shipping my household products to me
one by one, seems very wasteful and inefficient. Plus you'd either need to pay
extra for shipping every item you need or buy a prime subscription on top of
that.

Amazon pricing is all over the place, not like the normal variation of other
stores. You could easily be paying double or even triple since the last time
you bought.

------
Scoundreller
They seemed to have little value.

Cool project though.

------
PunksATawnyFill
I've added up all the shits that are given, and the stunning total is... zero.

