Wait, so the Dash button isn't an April Fool's Joke? I have been having conversations with people about those things every couple months and we still kept coming to the conclusion "it must have been a joke, but we aren't sure, and we actually can see a couple interesting use cases"....
How I Hacked Amazon’s $5 WiFi Button
121–127 of 127 posts
Re: How I Hacked Amazon’s $5 WiFi Button
#122I use eps8266 for my IoT. Can't get any easier or cheaper than that. http://nodemcu.com/index_en.html
Well, cheaper, no. But easier wouldn't be hard. I have two nodemcu-s, and getting the toolchain to work on OSX or Ubuntu has been a series of headaches - drivers are nontrivial, flashing updates is touchy, etc.
Re: How I Hacked Amazon’s $5 WiFi Button
#123Here at Penn we have a research platform where we try to motivate (among other things) medication adherence. We have integrated with various devices in the past that automatically track when the meds are taken, but for some reason the vendors of these devices always seem to flake out. We've been thinking lately that a simpler approach where people just push a button when they take their meds might be more sustainable…
There have been a few projects on KickStarter that do this. For example:
+ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sparkdevices/spark-elec...
+ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/konekt/konekt-dash-cell...
+ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/264813863/bluz-bluetoot...
Re: How I Hacked Amazon’s $5 WiFi Button
#124Here at Penn we have a research platform where we try to motivate (among other things) medication adherence. We have integrated with various devices in the past that automatically track when the meds are taken, but for some reason the vendors of these devices always seem to flake out. We've been thinking lately that a simpler approach where people just push a button when they take their meds might be more sustainable…
There have been a few projects on KickStarter that do this. For example: + https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sparkdevices/spark-elec... + https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/konekt/konekt-dash-cell... + https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/264813863/bluz-bluetoot...
Those are all dev kits, rather than consumer devices. I don't have hardware experience, and have no interest (in my current professional context) in ordering casings, mechanical buttons, or anything else. I just want to feed it a webhook URL and mail it out.
Re: How I Hacked Amazon’s $5 WiFi Button
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
The wifi and a tiny microcontroller are available for around $5 in single units these days - google "esp8266" - I'm only _marginally_ surprised Amazon can ship these for $5, but I bet they aren't making much (if any) loss on these at their volumes.
If $5 was near their costs, wouldn't they then sell it for 2$ or something, because Amazon (and their brand partner) make money with the button later? I bet the $5 price point is something they arrived at mostly by asking what customers are _willing_ to pay. That whole concept is so new they would not hinder it's success by making the button $10 or anything near the true cost. Amazon is all about investing in growth,…
I wonder…
My suspicion is perhaps someone said "Make them free! We'll make _heaps_ more out of the sales than they cost!", and someone else (probably a greybeard with enough experience to remember) said "Hey, remember CueCat? Maybe we need to 'sell' them for at least enough that when someone works out a good use for them that _doesn't_ result in retail sales, we won't be too unhappy with people flocking to grab them from us..."
Re: How I Hacked Amazon’s $5 WiFi Button
#126This sounds like a potential Kickstarter project idea. A generic version, perhaps a pack of stickers to put on devices symbolizing misc. everyday things.
Well there apparently is an "Amazon Elements" button that is pretty generic. Just slap a label on top of it.
I can see vinyl sticker sites having a dash template very soon.
Re: How I Hacked Amazon’s $5 WiFi Button
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's also this one, but still not $5 - https://store.particle.io/?product=internet-button
Does that have a cellular modem/wifi module? Seems like you'd need to connect it to a Photon or Electron to get connectivity.
The first line on the link is "The Internet Button includes a Photon, which can also be easily removed and used for other projects, a USB-micro cable and a removable plastic cover."
:) So it seems like it comes with a Photon.