Amazon was effectively giving them away for free for a large portion of their lifespan. You’d have deals where you’d pay for them and then get a coupon for actually using them equal to the purchase price. I feel like I even remember a few times where the coupon you got worked out to slightly more than you paid for the button. Basically, saying that someone ‘bought’ one was usually only partially true.
They did have a few legitimately good uses. Had to have something that needed restocking sporadically but you also didn’t think about often and could wait 2-3 days to receive when you realized you were out. A lot of prerequisites there, I used the ones for trash bags and detergent often.
It’s mostly just a shame the amount of ewaste produced at this point. I still have a box full somewhere in hopes of finding a use case.
I’m conflicted on the projects like that one right now. It’s super clever to monitor the network traffic for specific dash buttons trying to reach out, but it also feels super janky and I don’t feel like I can justify putting the effort to set that up when it just feels so fragile. Especially with the caveat that if the amazon block you have to setup for it fails then the device just becomes a paperweight.
Genius idea, but I’m going to hold out for the unlikely possibility of someone figuring out a firmware level hack.