Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon will pull the plug on dash buttons

marketwatch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 110 posts

Re: Amazon will pull the plug on dash buttons

#61

Post by fencepost »

reaperducer wrote: post #55

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.

I've advised clients to be cautious about Amazon "subscriptions" for toner and such because I've seen crazy looking pricing that seems designed to take advantage of such automatic orders, such as a 3-pack of toner for 4-5x the price of individual ones. I'm sure that at some point it was less expensive....

Re: Amazon will pull the plug on dash buttons

#62

Post by merb »

zwily wrote: post #56
prepend wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn’t actually buy. It sent me an email saying “you bought this, are you sure?” So it was a funny situation where I had to get my phone out anyway.

Where was that? In the US at least you didn’t have to confirm.

in germany it was like this after a while.

Re: Amazon will pull the plug on dash buttons

#63

Post by gh02t »

mcpherrinm wrote: post #15
Jun8 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but at $19.99 it's pretty expensive. I don't know what the right price point for something like this but, given the fact they are easily lost, definitely HW people on HN, is this impossible at scale?

$5: probably doable. An esp8266 dev board goes for $2 on AliExpress. That leaves $1 for plastics and $2 for a lipo battery.

The actual dash buttons (including the IoT ones) don't use lipo batteries, they use a primary cell. So you can probably shave a bit off there.

Re: Amazon will pull the plug on dash buttons

#64

Post by bduerst »

reaperducer wrote: post #55

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.

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.

Re: Amazon will pull the plug on dash buttons

#65

Post by bduerst »

magic_beans wrote: post #22
jpm_sd wrote: post #19

These were the ":CueCat" of 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat I wonder what today's equivalent is?

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

Probably more accurate an analogy than you think:

https://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/

Re: Amazon will pull the plug on dash buttons

#66

Post by bduerst »

TillE wrote: post #5

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.

The IoT market is a testing bed for custom hardware ideas. For every 20 dash buttons you eventually get a Nest. It just doesn't seem that way because of survivor bias.

Re: Amazon will pull the plug on dash buttons

#69

Post by grogenaut »

zwily wrote: post #56
prepend wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn’t actually buy. It sent me an email saying “you bought this, are you sure?” So it was a funny situation where I had to get my phone out anyway.

Where was that? In the US at least you didn’t have to confirm.

In the US you had the option to cancel

Re: Amazon will pull the plug on dash buttons

#70

Post by feel_the_need »

prepend wrote: post #29
sct202 wrote: post #11

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.

They were fun. I bought a few back when they were $1. It’s more fun to press the red bull button than to say “computer, order more Red Bull.” I didn’t really use them that much because amazon’s prices got a lot worse so I ordered my Red Bull and batteries from other places. I hope I can repurpose them for other iot signals.

could you share where you purchase them now?
Post reply on HN