We’re big fans of Amazon’s Dash buttons and their ability to let you order goods more conveniently than ever. As great as they are, though, the fact that they’re only available for specific products makes them pretty limited. The AWS IoT Button changes that.
A customizable version of the Dash button, it lets you program the control to trigger actions beyond ordering individual products on Amazon. The idea is to integrate the button into existing apps, services, and home automation devices, so you can use it to open the garage door, order pizza, or start the coffeemaker in the kitchen while you’re still in bed.
The AWS IoT Button, in effect, works like IFTTT, except with a branded physical button in the mix. It’s designed to work with the different Amazon Web Services, such as AWS IoT, AWS Lambda, and Amazon DynamoDB, allowing you to assign each button with an unlimited amount of functions. According to the product page, the button can recognize single presses, double presses, and long presses, so each button can have three possible functions at a time. It comes with onboard Wi-Fi and requires a full-time internet connection, since it needs to interface with Amazon Web Services for every single transaction, along with an onboard battery that’s good for 1,000 presses.
For now, the AWS IoT Button appears to be have been released at a small scale to get developers acquainted with Amazon’s various web services. It was available for a while, but has since been sold out. Based on how successful the Dash buttons are, though, we have feeling this will be back due to demand.