Orphaned Amazon Dash Buttons Ripe For Hacking






[via Ars Technica]

26 thoughts on “Orphaned Amazon Dash Buttons Ripe For Hacking















    1. I’m sorry but: +1

    2. I agree on some parts, but let me point out that in some niche cases, dash buttons were amazing. I’ll provide my experience as one of those cases…

      I’m a busy SAHM of two, but also a tech nerd (before I had to devote all my time to mommy-hood, I actually got a lot of use out of my B.S. in 3D), but I personally found the dash buttons to be wonderfully convenient. We jumped on it right away. I have them all over the house – tp, food, detergents, cleaners, paper products, pet products. I have them hidden in drawers, under cabinets, next to paper towel holders, and more. Needless to say, I was pissed when they said they were ending the physical button program.

      Why did I prefer the physical buttons? Let me count the ways:

      -Half the time, I have no idea where my phone is. I’m busy running around the house and sadly, the clothing companies still don’t seem to think women need sizable pockets, if any at all. Virtual buttons are completely useless for me.

      – My voice assistant devices can’t always hear me – a product of a large, mostly hardwood house and screaming kids in the background. Plus, I prefer GA, as I think Alexa sucks upon comparing them both (sorry, not sorry, lol. You just don’t get me, Alexa.)

      -My brain is completely scrambled. I timed it one time out of curiosity; my 3 yr old interrupts on average every 90sec. When I’m trying to clean up pee for the countless time this week, and realize I’m out of Swiffer pads, I have maybe a 60 second window to remember to order some right then on the spot, where I store the pads… before my brain is mush again. I could push the button the moment I remembered, instead of telling myself I needed to track down my phone and push the virtual butto—- “You’re hungry again? You just ate! No, we aren’t watching YouTube right now. I said no. No, get off that right now! You said your were hungry, so eat this. No? Well, then clearly you aren’t that hungry. Ugh, no, don’t throw it away. I’ll eat it if you don’t want it! ” (you get the idea, lol)

      However, I think you make a great point, too. How many techie stay at home parents are there out there? Probably not a ton. Probably not enough to make it worth it for Amazon as a business.

      It just sucks that they left so little behind. If you don’t want to support it or add more or add future updates, fine, but couldn’t you just leave the infrastructure alone? Why shut the whole thing down completely? I’m assuming it’s likely due to either security risks, consumer legal risks, or too high of maintenance costs to even do the bare minimum. Maybe all of the above.

      I guess this is what’s the risk, though, as an early adopter, so I try to take it in stride.

      In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out what’s possible. I’d love to find a way to make something at home that would work in a similar way, although it’s looking like hacking the Dash isn’t gonna be feasible, either. :(


  9. I hope to be proved wrong, but I think were dead in the water. Sometime during the last few weeks Amazon removed the capability to initialize a new Dash button in their app. Without that, there’s no way to get the button on your local wifi. The buttons contain a non-rechargeable AAA battery, which will eventually run down. At that point, there is no way to replace the button with a new one. (New buttons can no longer be initialized, and my experience is that even buttons which have been in service need to be reinitialized after the battery is replaced).

    Like I said, I hope there are some clever hackers out there that can prove me wrong!

    1. It’s not as cheap as the “good old days,” but if you have an application using a dash button and don’t want to give it up (as I do), there is a alternative. I purchased an “AWS IoT Enterprise” button. (These are still available from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/All-New-AWS-IoT-Enterprise-Button/dp/B075FPHHGG/) My understanding is that using it the “correct” way requires a monthly fee, but you can play the same trick that was used with the free buttons: Go through the setup process just far enough to get it connected to the WiFi network. Now, when I press the button, it connects to the network and generates an ARP request, so I can use it with my system just like one o fhe “old” buttons.

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