Amazon Announces Awesome New Tool or Trolls Entire Internet

In an announcement that seems to be legitimate, Amazon on March 31 declared that it will release by invitation only the Dash Button to select Amazon Prime members. The Button will link to customers’ Amazon accounts and make it possible to order select household supplies with the simple push of a button. Speculation abounds that the whole thing is an early April Fool’s joke, but Amazon says it isn’t. 

The idea is simple and possible, so it’s at least plausible, and if it is a fake, they should go ahead and make it anyway. Interested Prime customers are to go to the Dash site and sign up for an invite. Once they get it, they have one week to respond with an order for no more than three Dash buttons, each of which can be tied to a specific household product. Then, whenever the customer gets low on the detergent or toilet paper or whatever, he simply hits the button and it shows up the next day and the account gets billed.

The Dash buttons are connected to the home Wi-Fi with the Amazon app and linked to the Prime account to make the system work automatically. Amazon sends an order alert to the customer’s phone, so it can be cancelled if it was an accident. And unless he or she elects otherwise, the Dash Button responds only to the first press of the button until the order is delivered.

If this turns out to be real, it could be a big step toward connecting a huge base of homes to the IoT in a concrete way.