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Comment by bastawhiz | Hacker News Reader

In fairness to Amazon, my understanding is that existing Dash buttons haven't been sunset, they just stopped selling them. The one consumer device that I do know that they bricked was the Dash Wand, which was like a handheld Dash Button but you ordered with voice (like Alexa) or barcode. I think very few people actually had one, though.

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The dash button was sadly bricked. It was replaced by a widget in the app that was better at upselling.

Its only a matter of time before we have “smart containers” that will tell Amazon when your laundry detergent is low.

This exists as wifi-connected scales with Bottomless[1].

My gut reaction is that Bottomless is laughably absurd, an IoT device and middleman in search of a problem. But I’m trying to analyze it fairly. In what circumstance is this better than a normal product subscription that allows skips?

Anyone actually used it or know someone that uses it loyally?

1. https://www.bottomless.com/

I'm way too cheap to buy something like that myself, but I see a clear value proposition. Firstly, if your use rate is variable (maybe you bake only sporadically), that breaks any regular subscription. Secondly, it removes the human error of possibly failing to cancel the subscription, or failing to order.

That is basically the business model of Subscribe and Save without having to build a product. They give you a discount because they bank on you ordering more often than you typically do.

The problem with subscribe and save is I don't know the periodicy of how often I use most items, other than the ones in the grocery store, and I'm not shopping at Whole Paycheck.

Maybe, maybe not. The Dash button was basically a much simpler, cheaper version of that and it clearly didn’t work.

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