AWS offers $20 bribe to derps who buy old IoT condom-o-matic dunce dobbers Amazon Web Services is so desperate to shift its AWS Internet of Things Buttons that it is offering free AWS credits, tech support and even design services to anyone who buys them – and has relaunched its "enterprise program" to boot. The AWS IoT Button is supposed to be a one-donk order system for items such as pizza and …
I have two of the Amazon dash buttons..
House with three kids, bog roll disappears at an exponential rate. When down to last 9 pack press button stuck to the wall of the cupboard, crisis averted. Also have one for dishwasher tablets that seem to run out at inconvenient times (3 kids make an awful lot of washing up). Could do with one for washing powder too but we only use one brand and they don't do a button for it. I must remember to look for a tomato ketchup dash button too...
Ordering from Amazon is actually cheaper than going to get them myself.
I presume getting the condom dispensing button means you won't find yourself needing to have a bog roll one in years to come!
How is the crises averted? Magical Replicator delivery via internet?
Or do you live in a 19th C style American Rural retreat? I'm rural and it's a 20 minute ROUND trip to the cheapest supplier, or 5 minutes to the village shop.
I like mail order using the Internet instead of a printed catalogue and posted order, it's more convenient and faster (except from outside Europe). However for food, basic household items, footwear, many clothes and large heavy things the local retail suppliers are actually cheaper and I'm more likely to get something uncrushed, fresh or fits.
If I'm sick I can even use the sort of service people had from 19th C. to 1960s, instant contact of retailer and home delivery (Tesco via Internet and various fast food via phone or internet).
These Amazon buttons are a malicious supplier "lock in" for the terminally lazy.
My coat might have my phone (inc internet) or car keys. Both far useful than this Amazon tat pushed on their home page. You can imagine what I think of Amazon Echo.
You have to be unbelievably forgetful and disorganized to need a toilet paper ordering button in your house! If you can remember (or put on a list) to buy more milk, or more apples or more spam when you run short, surely you can remember to buy more tp. Otherwise you are going to need one hell of a lot of buttons in your house, and pressing the wrong one will mean you need to either eat four apples a day before they go bad, or press some other buttons to get everything you need to make a few apple pies.
"Exactly why you'd route your light switches through the cloud instead of using an inexpensive copper wire is completely beyond your correspondent. Hey ho."
The answer is almost always, "'Cos you can!". I suggest you watch the episode of Big Bang Theory where they route the on/off switch to their flat's table lamp to website and they get very excited as they track it as a some gonks in China use their fledgling IoT remote switch!
Amazon maybe isn't getting the advertising revenues they expected - I'm sure Tide and Charmin pitched in to make these a reality.
Supermarkets are strange - the business setup is nearly opposite of what you'd assume. It is more like real estate where the shelf space is what they rent out, and make a very small margin on the actual sales.
I'll take a dozen, set them to order up expensive medical supplies with every press, then stick them on the wall of a hospital with a Do Not Press This Button sign next to them.
The hilarious thing in the AWS post is the amount of background work that it takes to set up a simple time-saving button vs setting a repeating calendar notification.
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