The diminutive dongle lets you order everyday items — think toilet tissue, washing powder, and coffee — with the simple press of a button.
New brands joining the Dash club this week include the likes of Seventh Generation, Colgate, FitJoy, Emergen-C, Vitamin Code, Kingsford, and Rogaine.
The buttons are super-easy to set up and form part of Amazon’s big plan to make its online business your one-stop shop for absolutely everything.
Once you receive your branded button, you can use Amazon’s mobile app to link it to a specific product made by that company. For example, in the case of Tide, you might link the button to its high-efficiency laundry detergent, or perhaps the company’s original scent alternative.
Then it’s just a case of sticking the button on your washer and pressing it next time you see you’re running low.
Order confirmation is sent directly to your smartphone, giving you a chance to cancel it if you accidentally tapped it, or if one of your littl’uns thought it was a toy and innocently ordered a ton of the stuff when you weren’t looking.
Each Dash dongle costs $5, though you get this back with your first order, so they’re effectively free. Amazon launched the Wi-Fi-connected device in 2015, making it available to anyone signed up to its $99-a-year Prime service.
The ecommerce giant also uses similar technology as part of its Dash Replenishment service. This lets makers of connected devices incorporate the same functionality into their machines, enabling the automatic placement of orders for new supplies when the device detects it’s running low. A number of coffee makers and printers, for example, already offer the technology, so you don’t even have to press a button to restock.
It’s not clear how popular the buttons are, though last summer the company revealed that “for popular items such as a pack of eight Bounty paper towels and a 30-ounce canister of Maxwell House ground coffee, more than half of Amazon orders are now made via a Dash button.”
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