The four best Amazon Dash Buttons – and three ways they can improve

Stuff’s favourite Amazon Dash Buttons

Finish (Mark Wilson, Features editor)

The lazy, lizard part of my brain loves the idea of plastering Dash buttons everywhere. But my adult cortex (or whatever it’s called) is suspicious of their motives. The compromise? I’ve been trialling one button, the Finish one for dishwasher tablets.

As someone who hasn’t owned a car in a decade, I’m rarely able to do the kind of bulk buying that’s good for both my wallet and the environment. So my Finish button is linked to a massive box of tablets that I’ll only need to replenish every few months.

This is, in terms of cost, time and packaging, much better than buying a smaller pack every fortnight. It also makes me feel a bit like a corporation lab rat and is about as life-altering as setting up a new direct debit (I still need to go shopping, after all).

Still, it is one less thing to remember at the supermarket. All I need my button to do now is sense when I’ve forgotten to start my dishwasher on my way out the house and press ‘go’ for me.

Buy the Amazon Dash Finish button

Whiskas (Marc McLaren, Editor)

Cats are difficult creatures. Have you ever tried calling one when it needs its claws clipped or to be given worming tablets? You have literally zero chance of success. Well, unless you have cat treats to hand – and that’s where Whiskas Dash button comes in.

I never remember to buy cat treats on the weekly trip to Sainsbury’s; it’s not the kind of thing that springs to mind when you’re thinking about dinner plans. So the fact I can now just order them up almost on-demand is going to prove invaluable.

I did have high hopes for my cat, Poppy, being able to order them herself – not because that would be the best way to run the household but simply because it’d be pretty funny to see her patting at a Whiskas button. But thus far she’s done little more than sniff at it then wander away.

Maybe she knows that the arrival of the treats will herald another claw-clipping session?

Buy the Amazon Dash Whiskas Button

Listerine (Guy Cocker, Editor-In-Chief)

I’m worryingly organised when it comes to keeping my house stocked up on essentials. No matter how rigorous you are, though, there’s always something that slips through the net, and for me that thing is mouthwash.

I’d buy it from Asda, where I have a Delivery Saver plan, but there’s £40 minimum delivery, so I have to fill my basket with loads of snacks and sweets to bring up the total. Which defeats the object of getting mouthwash.

Using Amazon Dash is more convenient and cheaper – a 1L bottle of Listerine Total Care is £5 at Asda, but £4.50 on Amazon. The only downside with bulk-buying is that the bottle is so massive that it won’t fit inside my bathroom cabinet, so I have to heave it down from the top of the cupboard every morning.

My Dash button didn’t stick properly to the wooden back panel of the cabinet, but it now happily sits in the plastic-covered side. Overall I’d recommend it – it’s simple to set up, the product turned up the next day, and I got my first order for free. It could definitely be the start of a Dash Button habit.

Amazon Dash Listerine Button

Simplehuman (Esat Dedezade, Deputy Features Editor

My name is Esat, and I am a bin bag aficionado. Before you mock me, allow me to present my reasons for choosing the Simplehuman Dash Button, which ensures that I’m never out of fresh bin liners.

The humble bin liner is often an afterthought, chucked into our trolleys or pound shop baskets with zero enthusiasm. After all, they literally exist to hold our garbage. So why should we care about them?

Well, my friends, there are bin bags, and there are Bin Bags. The simplehuman ones are custom made to fit my simplehuman bin, which means no unsightly excess bin flaps. It’s not all about vanity though.

These bad boys are forged from extra thick plastic with double-seams, meaning no nasty rips, splits, tears or leaks – and don’t even get me started on the drawstring handles for easy tying and transport, because I literally can’t even.

Oh, did I mention that they come individually separated in a packet, saving me from faffing around with annoying, near-invisible perforations? Because they totally do.

The Dash Button, which has been lovingly (and conveniently) placed on the front of my kitchen bin, is a magical, instant portal to a universe of order and happiness, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Buy the Amazon Dash Simplehuman Button

Dash in the pan? Three ways Amazon’s Buttons could be better

1) Customisable Buttons

Right now, the Dash Buttons feel like they’ve been designed more for the brands than us. You can’t, for example, set up any rules for them to follow, like auto-ordering the cheapest of three similar products. Instead, you link your Button to one product, then pray the fluctuating prices work out in your favour.

We’d like the Buttons to get smarter and hand us more control. That’s not much to ask in the age of Logitech Pop and IFTTT. Amazon has released a programmable Dash Button in the US, but it’s limited edition and is effectively a blank slate for coders. Something in between would be nice thanks, Amazon.

2) Dash-only deals

One of our main Dash qualms is that it’s often not the cheapest way to shop. If you’re the type who only buys things on special offer, the lack of control with Amazon Dash will give you the jitters. After you’ve linked your Button to a product, the price can change (for better or worse).

In return for the stealth advertising of putting Buttons in our homes, we’d like to get some Dash-specific deals that make it the guaranteed cheapest way to shop. Or at least some ‘Subscribe & Save’ discounts. At the very least, we’d like price freezes for the products you’ve chosen, to make sure the Button doesn’t put you at a bargain-hunting disadvantage.

3) Press for beer

In a poll of the Stuff office for ‘most wanted’ Dash Button, half of the requests were predictably for beer brands (including Innis & Gunn’s rather tasty craft brews). We’d also like to see them branch out into the likes of Amazon Fresh. Need the ingredients for a homemade Thai green curry? Press your Dash Button and the ingredients are with you by dinner-time, thanks to Amazon’s one-hour delivery.

If that’s pushing the idea a bit too far, we’d also like a button for Converse trainers (size: the usual, colourway: whatever’s in season), plus buttons with fingerprint recognition to keep kids and pets at bay.

And, of course, a Stuff button. That’s not in the pipeline yet, sadly, but we aren’t ruling out a one-press hotline to our Gadget Doctor. Not that we’ve told him yet – that’s strictly between you and us.

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