Amazon has sent out an e-mail to those with a physical dash button starting that on August 31st, 2019 these devices will no longer work to re-order items.
Amazon is constantly evaluating our product and service offerings to best serve our customers. We are now offering customers more ways to shop than ever before, such as Alexa Shopping, smart reordering with an increasing selection of Dash Replenishment devices, Subscribe & Save, and virtual Dash Buttons. Because of the growth of these exciting new ways to shop, we are no longer supporting Dash Button devices. Beginning August 31, 2019, you won’t be able to use your Dash Button devices to reorder items. You can continue to order your products through the Amazon mobile app and Amazon.com, or by using your free virtual Dash Buttons.
If you wish to recycle your Dash Button device, find more information about the Amazon Recycling Program. Thanks for being an Amazon customer. We hope to see you again soon.
I always thought these were a terrible idea, but at some stages Amazon offered a credit that was bigger than the cost of the buttons making them profitable to purchase.
My dashes have been hoped.
Not everything makes the cut — Alexa toothbrush, Alexa dog collar, Alexa hot tub, Alexa space station, and now dash buttons.
Ars has an article that provides a good overview and a link to the process to convert these to IoT devices. From what I read, have to do that this month before the amazon service goes offline.
I believe you are referring to this article. Posting to save a few steps for others.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/08/amazon-to-kill-dash-button-functions-on-august-31-you-have-a-month-to-hack-yours/
These were short sighted. Alexa devices are so cheap and are even easier. You just say Alex reorder blah blah blah. I bet the product manager for these things knew their days were numbered once Amazon added the ability to place orders with Alexa
I think if you knew exactly the price you were paying every time you reorder it would be ok. But with amazon you never know what price you’re paying and you have to check, hence, making these worthless.
Yup. Start of with $10.98 for lavazza when walmart sells for $15. Then jack up to 18. And you sitting there blindly pressing a freaking button thinking you getting the same deal
Plus the multiple times Amazon kept telling me that so-and-so was not a viable option on my delivery anymore, and would I come back and choose another size of Tide Pod/flavor of Red Bull, etc., etc.
I probably have a bucket of 20 of these things. What a waste. How do you IOT them?
There are some python scripts out there that monitor and trigger when the button is pressed. Google nekmo/mazon-dash. Mine is my door bell. Send me push notification and flashes my lights.
wish i had known this! i just opened them up, harvested the AAA battery, and threw them away
I feel like these weren’t that unreasonable. Like for things like laundry detergent you run out, tap the button, and then it ships. Why not simplify the process? Can similarly be extended to things like Gatorade that are regular purchases
Yeah, for stupid people, they are reasonable.
if they raise the price, you won’t know. if they cancel the item listing, you have to manually change the button setting every time after they cancel it. If you have a 6 year at home, you might start receiving like 30 bottles of shampoos one day.
Happy to hear that. Less electronic waste is good news!
With these now being obsolete, they just became even more wasteful
I don’t think you understand how waste works. Now that they are discontinued, thousands of these things will be tossed straight into the trash. That’s not even counting the thousands maybe millions Amazon has sitting around untold. Those will be “recycled”. Meaning sold to a ewaste company that export them and they end up in a foreign countries landfill.
You don’t mitigate waste by continuing to use something that is not needed.
NM
At least they won’t be making new ones.
What’s the resale value? 😉
Yeah, never even remotely understood why these would be appealing on their own merits. For excess credit, sure.
They could be used as IoTs devices with a little work behind the scenes.