I recently got really into these Amazon Dash Buttons. I went on a shopping spree on Amazon with my Amazon Prime account and bought up all the Dash buttons that I thought would be useful. I bought one for toilet paper, AA batteries, AAA batteries, dish washing detergent, laundry detergent, fabric softener, the list goes on.

I followed a pretty simple pairing process using one of my Android phones. Android or iOS native Amazon app is required for setup (which is kind of a bummer for the relentless Windows Phone fanboy like myself). I only had to enter my Wi-Fi SID/key phrase on the first Dash button, all the rest took the information automatically. I guess that answers the question about whether they use Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

While browsing all the Dash Buttons that are available from all kinds of consumer products brands, I stumbled across one with the brand for AWS IoT. Instead of the normal $4.99 price tag, it was $19.99. I figured it was a developer device so I had to snag one and play with it. The price tag is a bit high to go beyond one just for tinkering.

I have a lot of experience with Azure IoT but haven’t played around with the AWS IoT service that came out this year so this is a happy coincidence (and excuse) for me to start digging in.