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

Disassembling the Amazon Dash

bitsofcents.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–115 of 115 posts

Re: Disassembling the Amazon Dash

#111

Post by rtkwe »

jacobr1 wrote: post #80
rtkwe wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see this becoming a single button for ever item in the house. I see the Dash button riding the middle ground between objects that you have highly predictable usage patterns or have a proscribed life span like toothbrushes where recurring orders make sense and less predictable items like paper towels where usage is harder to predict. I think the goal is also to make using the button easier than just opening th…

Or have it built into the bottle, perhaps even measuring the current fill level.

Unless that's a refillable bottle that you don't throw away that would add a huge amount of waste and cost to every product.

Re: Disassembling the Amazon Dash

#112

Post by rtkwe »

sangnoir wrote: post #107
lkbm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the concern is that I have, for example, around sixty different spices on my spice rack. Do I stick a button behind each one? My cluttered cabinet with AA batteries, AAA batteries, CFLs, compressed air, WD40, several dozen other items? How about each item in my cluttered fridge? I think the Amazon Fresh Direct concept mentioned elsewhere by mason55 makes a lot more sense. Stuck to the front of my fridge I wan…

How frequently do you replenish your spices/WD40? If you are a restuarant, then a button would make sense. The dash, in its current form, seems suited to high-turnover products where the sales generated over the devices lifetime can cover the initial cost. As someone else mentioned though, think of it as "Dash, the physical button" + "Dash, the API". The API is probably the long term goal, the physical button is just…

I think the next iteration is (or should be) a Dash button with an e-ink screen built in that can order any item and the screen changes to display the brand and name of the item it's setup to order.

Trying to add a changing ad screen to this would kill the battery life because of the check-ins to fetch the next ad. I also don't see that generating many sales because the customer would still need to change their set order, I think few people would accept Amazon outright changing what the button ordered based on the current ad.

Re: Disassembling the Amazon Dash

#113

Post by rtkwe »

meesterdude wrote: post #83
joezydeco wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or one could just (pre)order the $19 Spark Photon and get a working module with code, schematics, and support. Depends how you value your time.

i hate preorders! everything cool is preorder! Why can't the future be here today? is the spark photon really equiv to the dash? or does it still need other components in addition?

You'd need to add power, a button, and some code to replicate the Dash. Dash is really a super simple device.

Re: Disassembling the Amazon Dash

#114

Post by ars »

ceequof wrote: post #90
danellis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without analysing the firmware you wouldn't be able to confirm for sure what it's doing. It's on your own network, so it's trivial to know when it's communicating and with whom. In principle, it could periodically wake and poll a C&C server to see whether it should start streaming audio or not.

Nothing forces it to be on your network. If there's a neighbor with open wifi, or easily cracked wifi, or wifi Amazon already has the key for, (from an Amazon tablet/phone that's been connected to it before) then it could talk on that instead.

You could measure power draw on the battery and make sure no power is ever drawn except when the button is pressed.

Re: Disassembling the Amazon Dash

#115

Post by TickleSteve »

zwieback wrote: post #95
TickleSteve wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The setup process involves some audio processing which requires slightly more than trivial signal processing and also some RAM usage... Also handling the network stack requires some RAM. The combination of those two requirements and the low cost of the STM32s of that level of capability mean it was probably a sensible choice.

I'm surprised they went with F205, though. There are 32Lxxx chips with similar capabilities and lower power. The whole thing looks like a quick turn of a reference design and the real low-cost design will follow later on.

I would agree. It looks like a quick&safe design.... If it takes off, a cost-optimised version will appear.
Post reply on HN