Urm… Where’s the link to the individual article?
starting to find moire interesting uses
So they create patterns when you use more than one together? 
I’ve been waiting for this to happen - those little buttons seem like they could be really handy if they could be reprogrammed, but almost useless for their intended purpose. Certainly for keeping track of a newborn’s schedule it seems useful - I think we kept a log for a few months and even though there were a ton of apps for that, in the end it was easier just to keep a notepad. The only problem is that you’d have to have a bunch of buttons for each thing you wanted to trigger or record.
Ultimately this is all just bridge technology though. In the next few years I think we’ll see devices like Amazon Echo take over so much of this kind of thing just using voice commands.
These things are today’s CueCat.
So - for their original use - is there like a cool down period for use? Or if you 2 year old finds them and starts pressing buttons and 2 days later you end up with 3 pallets of laundry soap?
With intended functionality, the Dash buttons will only act on one push (even if pushed multiple times) until Amazon has shipped you the product associated with that button. But you probably should keep it out of reach of kids who don’t understand what the button is for.
Can it be reprogrammed to bring me beer?
They’re only really like the CueCat if Amazon goes berserk and makes threats of legal action.
Here’s some more info about hacking the hardware of an Amazon Dash button.
Are you talking about the button or the baby?
At my brother-in-law’s house: “Oh that? You push it once for each piece of candy you want the Easter Bunny to bring you.”
Beer bringing and lawn mowing are the two main reasons people have kids.
CueCat is good. I love my CueCat. As I was outside of the marketing coverage area, I got a friend to send me one. It was very helpful e.g. for debugging barcode generating software.
ESP8266 (in a module with more GPIO pins, e.g. the ESP-12), NodeMCU firmware, a keypad, and couple lines of Lua to scan the keypad. Maybe a LED for confirmation of the message being sent to the server.
Without the cloud, please! Pretty please!!!
Voice control is nice, but the processing must be local.
The device itself sends a request each time it is pressed. On the server side, the Amazon’s application apparently just sets a flag to deliver a shipment, and clears it once it is delivered. Multiple requests won’t have effect as the flag is already set. At least that’s how I understand it. The request is also authorized via a smartphone app.
If you have the infrastructure to get the beer delivered, it’s just a software hack.
Here’s a little guide I did on reprogramming the Dash’s CPU: https://learn.adafruit.com/dash-hacking-bare-metal-stm32-programming
It’s not a good beginner project, but if you’re a little handy with a soldering iron you can attach wires to test pads on the Dash circuit board and connect a STM32 programmer. Not all the Dash functionality has been figured out yet, in particular WiFi isn’t useable, but you can play around with flashing the LED, etc. It’s a neat little device and nice that Amazon engineers left a lot of test pads open to access (at least on this first revision).
My new startup, BEERRUN, is a cell phone app linked to a series of distributors equipped with coolers and warehouses stocked full of beer. Set up your account with the brews you choose, and then push this button, and our speedy delivery folk will be on their way to your front yard/local park/wherever your GPS happens to locate you!
HEY VESTERS ABOUT ALL THAT MONEY
Would the delivery people with the stocked coolers act as independent contractors?
Because then you could name the service…
…wait for it…
…UBEER!
I’ll show myself out.
Yes, but you’d need to run sudo bring_me_a_beer.
…on a second thought, this could be actually a working setup for situations where there are peak demands that the normal infrastructure would have difficulties to absorb.
…this could be extended to any resource that tends to be in demand. If we push it to an extreme, people could rent their toilets. USHIT. Start an app, check what door you can ring at when you must go.
How about using one of those as a door bell?
Did you want some moire?
