The Amazon Dash is a great, and very specific, piece of hardware

One of the available brands through Amazon Dash is the pet food brand Wellness, which I happen to feed my two cats. When I decided to go through with it, dooming myself to disapproving looks from friends and family, the justifications I ended up with weren’t applicable to anything else in the list of available Dash brands.

Canned cat food is something I order regularly, but it lasts me about 18 days, so Amazon’s subscription model doesn’t work unless I do some crazy math and order five boxes of it at once. It’s also something I frequently forget to order. It’s not something stocked at big box stores around here, and I don’t stop into pet stores for any other reason than for the food. It’s also a lot cheaper online.

In short, it works for me. As I look at the list again, I think the diaper and baby food options would be great for parents who have a hard enough time getting out of the house, let alone remembering things on too few hours of sleep. Garbage bags, laundry detergent, and sports drinks, on the other hand, don’t have quite as much going for them.

Getting the device from its tiny box to setup and ready to use is dead simple. All it takes is connecting to it using the Amazon app, which has a dedicated menu item for Dash, where you’ll setup your wireless network information, select the particular version of the product you want, and how you’d like to pay for and ship it. From there you can use the included hanger or pull that off and use the reusable adhesive on the back.

The list of products is pretty limited right now. If Dash doesn’t look immediately useful, it may not work for you quite yet. If it takes off and more products get added, the low barrier of entry – just a few dollars – will make it easy to get on-board. It might be the cheapest Wi-Fi device ever, and of course people are already starting to find ways to hack it.

Have you picked one up? Let us know what you think in the comments!