Amazon Dash Button hands on
Mashable has published a review of the Amazon Dash Button, which was released back on 31 March 2015. The dash button allows Amazon Prime customer to press the button and the item will be ordered automatically. Mashable suggests that the $4.99 devices, of which there are currently 18 brands available, are &ldquo;a stroke of genius, if you're extremely lazy and willing to let brands take over the home&rdquo;.
Buying stuff is literally a touch away with Amazon's Dash buttons.

The $5 "Wi-Fi enabled replenishment devices," as Amazon calls them, were announced on the eve of April Fools' Day and we all thought Amazon was pranking us. The joke was on us because Amazon was dead serious about these little doohickeys that allow you to order a specific product with a press of a button.

Eighteen brands(opens in a new tab) have partnered up with Amazon to sell Dash buttons; Amazon provided a promotional code for us to purchase a Kraft Mac & Cheese button and link to our own account to test out.

Is this the future of shopping? Have #brands finally gone too far in their quest to invade our homes?

The Dash is a simple little white piece of plastic. It comes in eco-friendly packaging (like all of Amazon's own hardware do).

The front shows the brand (Tide, Kraft, Gatorade, etc.) and has a button. It comes with a black removable ring for what I can only assume is for attaching to a hook (you're not really gonna clip this thing onto your keys or backpack, are you?).

On the back is an adhesive for sticking it around your house; a Tide button would go on your washing machine, Glad trash bag button on your trash bin, and so forth.

Before I say anymore, I should tell you Dash buttons are for Amazon Prime members only. If you don't have a $100 annual subscription to Prime, you can't play the lazy game.

Connecting to the Internet

Setting up the Dash is easy. You download the Amazon Shopping App for iOS, Android or Fire Phone (LOL) and follow the instructions on the screen to connect to your Wi-Fi network. The Dash button Amazon sent me failed to connect with my iPhone 6 and then wouldn't light up again. Maybe I got a defective unit. (Update: The Dash is working again after a weekend of rest.) Amazon doesn't specify how long battery for each Dash button is; a teardown revealed(opens in a new tab) there's a AAA battery inside.

Either way, we had two more buttons that Mashable senior tech correspondent Christina Warren bought for herself and the second Kraft Mac & Cheese button worked perfectly.

Once the Dash button is connected to the Internet, you can then select which specific product you want it to order up when you press its button. In my case, it gave me 17 different Kraft Mac & Cheese products to pick from -- different serving sizes, cheese flavors, etc.

You then press the button, wait for the little LED light to turn green for a confirmed order and red for a failed order. If your order goes through, you get an email notification.

Push button, get stuff

So I pressed the button once and got the email confirmation for a 10-pack of 2.05-ounce Kraft Easy Mac Triple Cheese in microwavable cups. Then I pressed it again -- no notification. I pressed it six more times and no extra orders. Did the Dash button break?

Nope. It turns out the default setting for the Dash button is set up to only allow one order per press until the order has been delivered. That's smart because it prevents accidental presses or your kids from going overboard with pressing the button. If you really want to enable one order per press, you can switch that on in the settings within the app.

The Dash button uses the same shipping and billing address, and payment method as your one-click order settings. And that's it. Literally, push button and get stuff.

Like any Amazon order you make, there is a short buffer time for you to cancel your order before it gets picked up and shipped out.

The future or just laziness?

So is this the future of shopping? Yes and no.

Yes, because the buttons work. Maybe you are so incredibly busy or live on the cutting edge. I mean, how cool is it to press a button and have a a pack of Huggies diapers delivered to your door within two days or less? That's so frickin' futuristic...if you're a busy mom or dad. Sure, I get it.

Are you OK with brands invading your home more than before? Credit: Raymond Wong/Mashable

Personally, I'm going to say Dash buttons are totally unnecessary. If you can't spend 10 seconds instead of one making an order for your Tide laundry detergent when you're running low on your phone or laptop, then maybe you're just too damn lazy to begin with. Or maybe you need to slow your life down by nine seconds. I know we live in a time of instant-gratification, but really!

And if you're living a life where you can't spare 10 seconds, Amazon also offers Subscribe & Save, a subscription service that automatically delivers your favorite products to you once a month and saves you up to 15% on your entire order. Why waste one second pressing a button when you can just not deal with thinking about re-stocking Gatorade at all?

The Dash buttons are clearly an experiment for Amazon and shoppers. In addition to only have an extremely small amount of products to pick from, you have to be loyal enough to a specific brand that you'll buy a button just for its products.

And how comfy are you with having branded buttons littered around your home? That's an entirely personal decision. At the very least, I feel like Amazon and its partners should be giving these Dash buttons away for free to shoppers for being loyal customers. Charging $5 for the convenience of a one-press purchase is ludicrous.

I, for one, don't want a Larabar button on my pantry door, announcing to all my friends and visitors that I have pledged my allegiance to only eat Larabars and not any other bars. (Not that I eat Larabars.)

Amazon Dash

The Good

Super easy set-up

Default button setting is accident/kid-proof

Works like magic

The Bad

Extremely small product selection right now

Brands invade your home

Unknown battery life

The Bottom Line

Amazon's Dash buttons are a stroke of genius, if you're extremely lazy and willing to let brands take over the home.