The $15 "1st Generation AWS IoT Button" is out of stock, but the $20 "AWS IoT Enterprise Button" is still in stock. Is there a difference besides the label?
The AWS IoT Enterprise Button is for the AWS IoT 1-Click service ("Trigger AWS Lambda functions from simple devices"): https://aws.amazon.com/iot-1-click/
Notice how the Enterprise button listing (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075FPHHGG) says "This is not the AWS IoT Developer Button" with a link to the other button.
1) Double the lifetime clicks (2000 vs 1000)
2) More tightly integrated with the AWS IoT 1-Click service. (so arguably more restricted, but actually easier to manage and scale if you're an actual enterprise managing thousands of these in the field, rather than one developer building a toy app)
Yes, but at $19.99 it's pretty expensive. I don't know what the right price point for something like this but, given the fact they are easily lost, definitely < $5, more like $1.
If you wanted to make it for yourself. A general rule of thumb I've heard several times for makers is to retail at 4x the cost of goods sold - else your business is unsustainable. So for a 5$ retail price you'd have to be somewhere near $1.25 COGS. Going the otherway - 19.99 for a 5$ COGS is perfect.
That's zero margin for Amazon though and no budget for assembly. If the materials cost is $5 then $10 is the absolute lowest you could probably hope for. $15 is a more sustainable (profit generating) product.
Being tangentially involved in this project it was my understanding that the devices were financed in large part by the marketing departments of the brands that had buttons, which is why they were tied to brands.
"We lose a little money on every customer, but we make it up on volume." :-)
I think in Amazon's case it was just experimentation with a sunk cost. Based on the discussion above it looks like it's impossible to form a company to sell these to turn a profit, at least in the dash button form.
The original purpose of the “hackable” button was to give a fun piece of experimentation kit that worked with AWS and encouraged people to try it out. I set up my AWS account just to use one.