Hacker News Reader

Comment by bschwindHN | Hacker News Reader

From the Amazon official page (https://aws.amazon.com/iot/button/):

    How long will the battery last?
    
    The battery should last for approximately 1,000 presses.  
    When the device battery runs out of charge, there is no way to recharge or replace the battery.

How can you sell a button that has only 1000 presses in it for $20 with a straight face? Looks like overcomplicated, overpriced garbage to me.

View on HN

I can't believe they do it either. It's a button. Its main purpose is to be pressed. They literally say it will cost you 2 cents per button push.

And that is assuming your time spent on ordering and setting it up is worthless.

It's being presented as testing hardware, so you can get to know their stack. At $19, it's probably being subsidized substantially.

In the same way free AWS instances are not adequate for hosting a production website, this is a toy for devs to get to know their stack...

The real question for this device is, is it hackable, i.e. can you change the software running on it, or open it up and solder different hardware to spare pins?

It looks like people have done this, but it's surprising amazon would sell a devboard without catering to it: https://github.com/dekuNukem/Amazon_Dash_Button

> this is a toy for devs to get to know their stack...

The difference being that AWS has real tiers. The dash button is exactly the same even if you "go pro" (what does that even mean? You persuade your BigCo employer to join the program?).

I suspect it's a last-gasp attempt at making some money out of a program that has not become as popular as they thought.

"At $19, it's probably being subsidized substantially."

Doubtful

If it's testing hardware, then why doesn't it have a replaceable battery? This is just madness.

Just cancelled my order based on this.

me too

me three

Fourth.

I kinda wanted one in the hopes that if it worked well, I could theoretically get a lot more to trigger actions for things with my Z-Wave setup.

20$/each isn't amazing but its not exactly terrible for this. But 20$/each/year (or less!), horrible.

From an environmental perspective, it is completely retarded I would say.

I don't get why people like Amazon, none of their services are any good. Although to be fair, Amazon (the retail) doesn't exist in my country.

> none of their services are any good

Care to back that statement up? :)

(no argument on the environmentally subpar approach to the button)

Well, it's a subjective statement as it is my opinion. But for me as a Swede:

* The closest retail in Amazon is in GB or Germany, orders takes weeks to reach me which is a mystery since I've ordered stuff from Germany before and they usual deliver within a week.

* Closest AWS datacenter is in Ireland, latency is high for nordic countries.

* Their documentation is very confusing, you can read all about their web services without understanding one. Leading to sites like this: https://www.expeditedssl.com/aws-in-plain-english

But sure, their services works and is probably good for many, but I've never found them any useful at all.

Isn't there an AWS Amsterdam datacenter which would be better latency?

Frankfurt, but latency doesn't always correlate directly with physical distance.

Try Frankfurt. It may have better latency for you, even if it's further away.

AWS is a pretty popular service ;)

Amazon cloud drive is fairly performant and a good price. I use it as a backup repo. Amazon prime shipping is also pretty great and the prices are pretty decent usually. They're also the biggest cross platform ebook vendor with the most selection.

> no way to recharge or replace the battery.

No way at all in the entire universe not even with hand tools and a soldering iron?

I think what they mean is no reasonable way. Who wants to spend $20 on a button they will have to tear apart and desolder?

I guess the original design was to order things infrequently, and if you ordered a new detergent every 10 weeks that's fine.

Wow, I'll wait for v2 then.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com