Amazon Dash Wand

amazon dash

Amazon Dash is a handheld Wi-Fi wand that includes a barcode scanner and a microphone, allowing you to scan or say what you’re running low on without having to leave your kitchen. Woah, Amazon is agressively taking convenience to a whole new level. I can’t help but admit that this doesn’t feel good. Don’t get me wrong, I am guilty of ordering from Amazon. But I have consciously started reconsidering what exactly I am ordering online. If a small local business sells it close by, I will go there.

The examples they’re showing in this video are making me a bit sad; milk? You really want to get one jug of milk in a big cardboard delivered the next day? Also, doesn’t the iphone app already do exactly this?

ps: I first thought this was an April’s Fools Joke.

12 Comments leave a comment below

  1. That’s a really thoughtful post. I hope it makes people – esp. In larger cities – think about what they’re buying online. The sad part around Milwaukee is that urban planners don’t think about increasing foot traffic and walkable neighborhoods enough to sustain smaller grocery stores. There are so many redeveloped neighborhoods without a simple corner grocery store because there’s no walkable area with enough stores to make people get out of their cars to walk around and shop and eat and entertain themselves. And too little mass transit to support everyday businesses that would benefit from people who chose to use it instead of taking their cars everywhere. It’s sad. And very short sighted.

  2. I’m in the process of closing my independent gift store after 13 years. one of the biggest issues we had was people coming to browse, then looking for it on Amazon, which is cheaper and with free shipping. But they don’t realize that for every penny they save like that, it’s my employees, who get fair living wages, who lose out. It’s independent retailers who lose. And now another store front and website will be gone in a matter of weeks. But you know, as long as people can order milk online…..

  3. I work for an boutique toy manufacturer we’ve always struggled the idea of competing channels- so we partnered with shopatron which allows ppl to buy on our website but the order is shipped from a local-ish store.

    One thing they are trying to do is create a network of independent stores that won’t necessarily put Amazon out of business but will allow them to survive in this new ecommerce world. You probably already know about them from Tattly!

  4. And NOW…ta-da! We can all be even more anti-social and never leave the comfort of our homes!

    I, for one, hate grocery shopping, but I’d still rather get out of the house to do that, than have everything delivered to my front stoop. Seems like a scene from a futuristic movie. Not the future I’m wanting to live in..

  5. Honestly, I know my boyfriend would love this. We live in a small town in NJ where the only local grocery stores are Wal-Mart or Acme, and there’s virtually one very expensive local produce store. We try to shop at Aldi or Bottom Dollar most of the time, which isn’t too far of a drive, but places like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s (even if we could afford them) are 45 minutes to an hour away.

    I go to school full time in Phila, so I’ll try to make a point to stop at the Reading Terminal or Chinatown biweekly to purchase fresh food locally.. but for where we live and the work we both do, I’m interested in the device (especially if it saves us a trip/competes with Wal-Mart)

    But… where the Dash is available right now: Southern California, San Francisco, Seattle.. (maybe I’m naive) but aren’t those places just filled with amazing bakeries, local grocers, and mom & pop stores within walking distance? I couldn’t imagine the need for it there.

  6. Yepp, I’m totally with you, Tina, on this.
    Surely it’s nice to find and order stuff online, but I don’t want to live in a neighborhood where store have to close down.
    Books? I sometimes find them online, just to order them later (sometimes by phone) at our local bookstore.
    I need an office bag for my bike. There’s this bike store just opened around the corner: I will go there first to find the Ortlieb bag that I saw online (at ortlieb.de).
    Get outside and talk to folks in your community and support them.

  7. Yes, I agree with you. This is the opposite of what people should be doing today.

    Another tool that would help speed up our involution.

  8. I feel the same way – not good. I just keep seeing developments towards the movie Wall-E everywhere: Amazon = Buy&Large!

  9. I chuckled a little when you highlighted the absurdity of milk being delivered to the door- that was a daily occurrence growing up in England! I do miss those days, we’d open the front door and pluck the glass bottles out of the milk crates, putting them back out again at night, the milkmen in their diddy carts. Good times.

    Having said that I do understand your wider point, getting everything delivered is a lonely trend. The milk deliveries of old were part of our culture, and the product itself was locally produced/packaged etc. ‘Good mornings’ were exchanged with neighbours as we collected the milk, everyone knew and had a good rapport with the milk man- will that be the case with Amazon Dash deliveries? I doubt it but I hope so!

  10. I use PeaPod.com here in Chicago and have an iPhone app to reorder groceries from them using a bar code scan.

    What’s missing in this demo/example is selections? You can say “milk” but what brand, size, etc?

  11. Am I the only one who thinks this device looks like a pregnancy test? lol #designfail

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