11 ms·
Disassembling the Amazon Dash
- alaskamiller 12y agoWhy not a 2G cellular modem that sends out SMS? WiFi for location?
- kondro 12y agoCost of carrier access.
- alaskamiller 12y agoSpark Devices negotiated with Telefonica for $3/1mb/mo global data plans. Maybe the bigger question is... why can't there be cheaper data plans available.
- jon-wood 12y agoDepending on which product is being bought with these $3/month could be Amazon's net profit on what gets bought with these things in a month.
- gambiting 12y ago$3 a month? That's really expensive for essentially a dumb button. Why would you bother with a 3G modem if you can just use someone's Wi-Fi? Especially since there's probably no GSM signal in your laundry cupboard,but a wifi router will be nearby.
- bucketsofdirt 12y agoI think the first gen. kindle put them off of that.
- Ecco 12y agoAny clue about the software?
- rooiboss 12y agoSo basically Amazon is tempting you to place wifi enabled microphones around your house? I sure hope it's only capable of picking up high frequency audio.
- yincrash 12y agodoing more listening/processing/data transfer than just the initial setup + occasional button presses would make it drain its single AAA battery quite fast.
- flurdy 12y agoDash was not an April fools?
- michaelt 12y agoOne neat thing Amazon are doing with this product, which I hadn't considered as an "internet of things" option, is making each unit of hardware order a single supplier's goods. All the example buttons say "Tide" or "Bounty" or "Gillette" or "Olay" right on the button - all Procter & Gamble. And the other goods pictured [1] are all brand-name goods with fairly big marketing budgets. In the jargon of the grocery industry, this means the buttons can be "supplier funded" - Procter & Gamble probably pay Amazon a reasonable portion of the cost of the button, as a marketing method. [1] https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-button https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-button
- cushychicken 12y agoThat's a really insightful strategy. Amazon wins by not needing to sink more development time into cheaper hardware by getting P&G to offset costs, while P&G wins by effectively pays a one-time fee per customer per product to ensure a steady stream of sales. Hadn't thought of that angle at all. Enlightening comment!
- monkeyprojects 12y ago$2 a year for a permanent advert within someone's house which also generates sales. Sounds like a win / win for both P&G and Amazon...
- deegles 12y agoWhat if the Dash becomes very popular? I believe we'd see an explosion of companies funding dash buttons which would, in my opinion, be a bad thing for the customer. I don't like the idea of locking myself into a brand for the life of the device. I'd like to see a configurable button that orders, say, the cheapest paper towels that have at least a 4-star rating. The suppliers probably wouldn't be happy about the competition though.
- mseebach 12y agoThe point of funding Dash buttons is that they're free for the consumer. You're locked in, only so far as you can't be bothered to throw out the button, or just not push it, or instead push the button provided to you for free from a competing brand. That said, it's almost impossible to imagine that a future where Dash is successful doesn't contain configurable buttons like the ones you describe - they probably just won't be free.
- minthd 12y agoWhy does amazon use a module,instead of certifying their own ? this hopes to be a large volume project , so the savings could be considerate.
- jon-wood 12y agoThe article is estimating the price of one of these things as being $5 - I imagine that at least for an initial trial Amazon have decided they can make a decent return on them at that cost without certifying their own components.
- BillinghamJ 12y agoAlso a key factor may have been the time required to get their own stuff certified vs using off the shelf stuff.
- joezydeco 12y agoA lot of people prototyping in the IoT space are using the precertified modules. There's not much more to it: the transmitter is already soldered to a small piece of PCB but has the antenna and necessary tuned discretes on there and ready to go. Doesn't add much to the cost: like BillinghamJ says it's the certification time and cost that's not really worth the trouble if you can just amortize it into the cost of the module.
- minthd 12y agoThe cost comes from adding another company to the process - the module maker. But sure, at this stage it might not be worth it , maybe later.
- joezydeco 12y agoHardly a concern anymore. These are just line items on a bill of materials now: http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/450-0103C/450-0103C-ND/4331947 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/450-0103C/450-0103C...
- aioprisan 12y agoAnother always on microphone from Amazon in your home. Welcome to 1984!
- mseebach 12y agoThe microphone is only active when you hold down the button - if it's always on (for whatever reason, accidentally or maliciously), the unit would run out of power in a few hours, it's powered by a single AAA cell.
- minthd 12y agoIt doesn't have to be always on, it could be remotely controlled.
- danellis 12y agoIt's not powered up, though. That's why it lasts so long on one battery. The button wakes it up.
- userbinator 12y agoThere's a 32kHz RTC oscillator in the MCU, which can be programmed to periodically wake it up as well. Without analysing the firmware you wouldn't be able to confirm for sure what it's doing. I suppose one exercise for those inclined would be to reprogram it to listen (perhaps only during the daytime) and see how long it lasts. You wouldn't need high fidelity so a low sample rate would be enough.
- danellis 12y ago> Without analysing the firmware you wouldn't be able to confirm for sure what it's doing. It's on your own network, so it's trivial to know when it's communicating and with whom. In principle, it could periodically wake and poll a C&C server to see whether it should start streaming audio or not.
- PanMan 12y agoI'm disappointed that it isn't powered by the kinetic energy of the pressing: I heard some Philips Zigbee control devices work that way (but Wifi might be too power hungry for that). And I was expecting them to use the ESP8266 for this: Does anybody know if (at scale) that would have been cheaper?
- cushychicken 12y agoI'm not sure if the 8266 could be powered kinetically - wifi is particularly power hungry.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- steckerbrett 12y agoThe ESP8266 has peak draws of almost a watt when transmitting, unless Amazon releases a crank-to-order device that doesn't seem particularly plausible. I'm slightly surprised that they didn't use the Espresso solution here to keep their part count down, but it is possible this model is just to gauge market interest.
- ohitsdom 12y agoYou are disappointed a wifi device isn't powered by the force of pressing a single button? High standards...
- joezydeco 12y agoIt doesn't look like the ESP8266 has the necessary I/O to do the audio provisioning trick that the Dash is doing with that hybrid module. Provisioning these things can be a hassle sometimes. The TI CC3xxx has a really wacky one. A custom provisioning app transmits the SSID and password of the target network by sending encrypted packets to nobody: the CC3xxx sniffs the length of the encypted packets and picks up the necessary information from the string of those length bytes. The audio thing is a lot more elegant, but needs some filtering and processing to make it happen.
- nemik 12y ago
- pelf 12y agoIs it just me that finds the entire concept of the Dash ridiculous? I mean, what's the idea, having a button for every single product we buy? And we need to set it up first. How is that any better than recurring ordering or just opening the website and ordering it? Are we expected to have an entire wall of dashes at our place? I guess we'll need to sort them alphabetically or by color, so we don't waste time searching for the button we need.
- madprops 12y agoOr you know, why not a phone application that would order the same thing with a single tap.
- joezydeco 12y agoI think the idea is that this is eventually built right into the products. The washer with the built-in Amazon button for detergent, etc.
- madprops 12y agoThat's an interesting thought. There would be deals by detergent companies to include their button in a washer. Also maids could order the products themselves if they're responsible enough.
- joezydeco 12y agoI'm thinking more about P&G giving you a free washing machine if you agree to automatic delivery and billing of their detergent. You can certainly choose other brands to put in the machine, but every 40 cycles another box of Tide Pods will show up on your doorstep.
- seanwilson 12y agoI don't think the concept is so ridiculous: it's easier to press a single button that is placed in the area where you'd normally notice the product you're looking for is running out compared to getting out an mobile app or visiting a website. Ease of use is likely to lead to more sales. Maybe the idea won't work but it sounds worth experimenting with to me.
- davb 12y agoCan anyone recommend any resources on power management on something like this? My background in electronics is quite basic though I'd love to understand how they managed to build an ARM-based, battery-powered device that is predicted to last for years. I know it's not "always on" but it's fascinating nonetheless and I think building something similar would make for a fun project.
- minthd 12y agoBasically it always sleeps, and wakes only when you press the button - does it job rapidly and goes back to sleep. Since you rarely press the button , it can live for years.
- steckerbrett 12y agoMost microcontrollers have extremely low power sleep states, maintaining interrupts on external inputs often only draws the smallest amounts of power. When you're designing for low power electronics like this you often run into the problem of the self discharge of the battery completely dwarfing any consumption your microcontroller has. I'm reasonably confident they chose a lithium AAA simply because they have very low self discharge, and a AAA over something like a coin cell due to the rather enormous amount of power needed to transmit 802.11. I get the feeling that this device is pretty tentative for Amazon, they haven't gone to huge lengths to keep the price of the build down. In particular there's also a connector on the bottom right of the PCB that looks a lot like it could be for a small screen or some other peripheral.
- TickleSteve 12y agoThe main loop looks something like this: Note that the button is hooked up to an interrupt to wake the processor and return from the Sleep() fn. main() while true Sleep(); InitialiseNetworkStack(); SendPacketToAmazon();
- cubano 12y agoWe wanted flying cars, but instead we got one-button branded soap ordering.
- a8da6b0c91d 12y agoI just want a milkman who comes daily and reads my handwritten note, like we used to have.
- sukilot 12y agoInstasoap can't kill each other, tho.
- Sanddancer 12y agoAll of those exposed pads on the pcb, as well as the silkscreening near a quartet of pads labeled TX1 make me think this thing is going to be amazingly hackable. The micro in there is no slouch by any means, and a wifi module is always fun. I'm giving it at most a week before interesting things are done with these.
- joezydeco 12y agoOr one could just (pre)order the $19 Spark Photon and get a working module with code, schematics, and support. Depends how you value your time.
- meesterdude 12y agoi hate preorders! everything cool is preorder! Why can't the future be here today? is the spark photon really equiv to the dash? or does it still need other components in addition?
- joezydeco 12y agoFTA: "At the heart of the Dash is a USI (Avnet) 850101. The 850101 is a combination wireless module (Broadcom BCM43362) and micro controller (ST Microelectronics STM32F205). This makes the Dash capable of connecting to 802.11 b/g/n networks with its 120MHz ARM Cortex-M3 processor. It also happens to be exactly the same chip used inside the $19 Spark Photon." Avnet USI is just repackaging the chipset on behalf of ST and Broadcom. Honestly, there are other things you can order today if you don't want to wait for this one. You could try adafruit, sparkfun, or even digikey. I personally recommend the modules from LS Research. Module: http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/450-0064/450-0064-ND/4006733 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/450-0064/450-0064-N... Eval/Breakout board + Module: http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/450-0120/450-0120-ND/4331950 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/450-0120/450-0120-N...
- rtkwe 12y agoYou'd need to add power, a button, and some code to replicate the Dash. Dash is really a super simple device.
- spacefight 12y ago"Also on the bottom is the small microphone used for setting up the Dash." Damn... another microphone in your household capable of recording sounds near that device.
- tomkinstinch 12y agoI'll put in a shameless mention that this is exactly the sort of content my STEM education side project, TakeItApart[1] was meant to centralize. OP, we'd love to see the Dash included on TakeItApart so others can learn from your breakdown. This annotation of the Dash components is terrific. It would be fun to probe the exposed pads to see if they have left an STM32 SWIM/JTAG header available. It's interesting that they choose to use a AAA battery but did not include a battery door so that users could replace it. Perhaps that is coming? Still, the power optimization is impressive considering how power hungry it can be to do wi-fi RF transmission (on the order of a 1 watt). 1. https://www.takeitapart.com/get-started https://www.takeitapart.com/get-started
- maguirre 12y agoCan anyone comment as to why they'd go for a cortex M3? @120Mhz it seems like overkill for the function of this device. I know it's pretty cheap but it could have made even cheaper with a less capable micro.
- jfoster 12y agoFirst batch might be a MVP.
- TickleSteve 12y agoThe setup process involves some audio processing which requires slightly more than trivial signal processing and also some RAM usage... Also handling the network stack requires some RAM. The combination of those two requirements and the low cost of the STM32s of that level of capability mean it was probably a sensible choice.
- zwieback 12y agoI'm surprised they went with F205, though. There are 32Lxxx chips with similar capabilities and lower power. The whole thing looks like a quick turn of a reference design and the real low-cost design will follow later on.
- TickleSteve 12y agoI would agree. It looks like a quick&safe design.... If it takes off, a cost-optimised version will appear.
- ukandy 12y agoIrresponsible product design. Unnecessary and throwaway.
- ISL 12y agoI'm bummed that it's apparently vendor-locked. A configurable Dash would make it applicable to all things Amazon. There are perhaps 100 places in our facility that a '"consumable X needs a refill/attention". We don't need a specific brand, and the brand we use can vary over time as needs and pricing change.
- rtkwe 12y ago> You will see a list of available options from the product line your Dash Button is associated with. For example, if your Dash Button can be used for Tide detergent, you may see a list of various Tide detergent scents and sizes that you can choose from. Tap the item to select it.[0] That is disappointing, from the early materials it seemed like the face plate was just branding and you could select anything you wanted. They're probably partnering with the various brands that there are buttons for pay some of the cost of manufacturing the devices. There might be a non brand locked version coming in the future once they've moved past the initial release and rollout. At least I hope so. [0] http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201746340 http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...
- minthd 12y agoMaybe this could help: http://www.ecinews.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1695:crestron-intros-wireless-keypad-&catid=18&Itemid=300692 http://www.ecinews.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=arti...
- danielsamuels 12y agoI imagine if you build up a collection of these for a variety of products you'll need something to hold them all, perhaps it could be called a DashBoard?
- cognivore 12y agoWhy is it I feel like this is just something that is designed to get me more working hours? I like going to the store, socializing, finding things to try, being a human. Pushing a button doesn't do it for me.
- discardorama 12y agoTo steal someone else's tweet: AOL in a big media deal, Clinton running for office, stocks at all time highs, new cuecat is here. What's not to love about 2000?