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in case anyone is interested I wrote a node.js module a while back to repurpose dash buttons not as elegant as their official IoT button, but it works (and dash buttons are 25% of the price) https://github.com/hortinstein/node-dash-button edit: corrected my tired beer math
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This is interesting, since from teardowns it looks like there's literally just a AAA battery in there: https://mpetroff.net/2015/05/amazon-dash-button-teardown/
Yup, but they decided to weld the contacts of the board to the battery. I'm guessing that they calculated it was cheaper (or more business savvy) to get users to replace the button every X months/years than to make the button in such a way that the battery is user replaceable and also indicates charge level.
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Yup, but they decided to weld the contacts of the board to the battery. I'm guessing that they calculated it was cheaper (or more business savvy) to get users to replace the button every X months/years than to make the button in such a way that the battery is user replaceable and also indicates charge level.
It also means they can reasonably assume there aren't 10 year old buttons using an ancient protocol out there to support.
I'm glad they accepted that people were already hacking [1] their cheap Dash buttons and decided to roll with it. It's 4 times more expensive than their hackable Dash buttons ($20 vs $5), but apparently more powerful (and secure?) from the get-go. [1] For example, see all the entries: https://hackaday.com/tag/amazon-dash/
That's interesting. A new product like this (no matter how seemingly small) takes some work, so to me this suggests that people hacking the "subsidized" buttons were a bigger use case then they'd planned for.
Have they updated the branded ones so you can't reuse them? otherwise why waste $20 when you can get one of the original branded versions for $5.
The branded ones are presumably subsidized by the brands they're labelled with, and getting them to do whatever you want is a fairly hacky process to my knowledge. $20 is pretty comparable to most of the IoT "do anything when pressed" stuff I've seen on Kickstarter and elsewhere. It'd be a handy "arm my security system" sort of thing for me.
I hacked one of these to power the nightlight in my kid's bedroom ( https://github.com/ecaron/hue-website-nightlights ). The downside is that the button barely lasts for 1000 presses = 90 days (all kids like pushing buttons). And it is heart breaking because its just a AAA battery that they decided to solder in place... I'm excited that this button launched. But $20 is too much for something without a swappable batte…
Are there alternatives to this? It sadly seems like amazon has no plans to release it internationally anytime soon. I'm looking for a simple button that can just ping a URL in the simplest case. I'm looking at a raspi + button hardware right now but something already packaged with wifi would be a lot easier to use.
particle photon. Does input and output via GPIO just like raspi but with wifi onboard. https://store.particle.io/
Are there alternatives to this? It sadly seems like amazon has no plans to release it internationally anytime soon. I'm looking for a simple button that can just ping a URL in the simplest case. I'm looking at a raspi + button hardware right now but something already packaged with wifi would be a lot easier to use.
https://www.stavros.io/posts/emergency-food-button/
You can also directly order a PCB, if you want, although you'll have to solder the components yourself.
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The branded ones are presumably subsidized by the brands they're labelled with, and getting them to do whatever you want is a fairly hacky process to my knowledge. $20 is pretty comparable to most of the IoT "do anything when pressed" stuff I've seen on Kickstarter and elsewhere. It'd be a handy "arm my security system" sort of thing for me.
What are examples of those "do anything when pressed" Kickstarters? All I know of is Flic.