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Comment by radnor | Hacker News Reader

The Flic button did just that, except it uses bluetooth instead of wireless. https://flic.io/

The extra usability and generic-ness means it'll cost you $35 vs $5 for a branded WiFi button.

It looks like that button isn't standalone, and needs a phone nearby to work. I just want something with that form factor that makes a POST request to a URL of my choice, that's it.

How about the bttn? https://bt.tn/ I think it does what you want and has wifi or mobile data.

It's 70 euros, which is an insane amount of money for a button, and it's huge :/ The one posted above is small enough to unobtrusively stick on a wall and less than half price this one. Hopefully they'll come out with a standalone mod.

There's also this one, but still not $5 - https://store.particle.io/?product=internet-button

Does that have a cellular modem/wifi module? Seems like you'd need to connect it to a Photon or Electron to get connectivity.

The first line on the link is "The Internet Button includes a Photon, which can also be easily removed and used for other projects, a USB-micro cable and a removable plastic cover."

:) So it seems like it comes with a Photon.

How cheap could these get? Which would be cheaper, bluetooth or wifi?

Amazon obviously can subsidize via product sales.

Rough bill of materials is probably around 3-5 dollars (I searched online and found low power wifi chips in bulk at around 2-3 dollars). I'd estimate 10-15 dollars after R&D, assembly, packaging, shipping, etc. Does that seem reasonable?

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