Amazon Rolls Out $20 Programmable Dash Button For IoT Tinkering, Promptly Sells Out

We’ve all seen Amazon’s Dash buttons; the little Wi-Fi connected devices that allow you to quickly reorder products without even having to visit Amazon’s website. Back in late March, Amazon expanded its Dash lineup to include over 100 products from dozens of household brands. Now, Amazon has rolled out a customized version of Dash, which is called the AWS IoT Button.

The AWS IoT Button isn’t meant for restocking your pantry, bathroom or laundry room — instead, it’s destined to integrate into your digital life to automate tasks. As its name implies, the AWS IoT Button takes advantage of the Amazon Web Services infrastructure to perform tasks like turning on lights, ordering pizza or even hailing a ride with Uber. It integrates nicely with third-party APIs from the likes of Slack, Twitter and Facebook, or you could even choose to integrate it with proprietary applications used by your business.

But perhaps the best usage is for the tinkerers out there; Amazon says that AWS IoT can be used count or track items, start/stop tasks, or even call a particular person. The possibilities are endless. Amazon CTO Werner Vogels explained via Twitter:

@web @BenedictEvans if you can do it as an Alexa Skill, you can you it with the button. All #AWS #Lambda

— Werner Vogels (@Werner) May 13, 2016

“For example, you can click the button to unlock or start a car, open your garage door, call a cab, call your spouse or a customer service representative, track the use of common household chores, medications or products, or remotely control your home appliances,” Amazon explains.

If you’d like to learn more about AWS IoT Button, Amazon has a handy step-by-step tutorial that walks you through setting up the device and integrating it into your workflow. But first of all, you’ll have to get your hands on one, which at this time is unfortunately a bit hard to do. Amazon has already sold out of the $20 device after less than a day on the market.

Amazon likely didn’t realize what a hot commodity it had on its hands and is going to need to crank up the production numbers pronto to appease tech fiends that are quickly embracing the IoT movement.