[tetrep]

Why was a separate physical device needed for this? It seems like a simple smartphone application would work just as well, if not better as I would assume virtually all of the target audience for this service already have a smartphone.

[devicenull]

Go scan a bunch of barcodes on your phone, in varying light levels and angles. The process is pretty terrible, phone cameras cannot beat dedicated barcode scanners at actually scanning barcodes.

[eridius]

I assume the use case here is you're in the process of using up an item. The easier and faster Amazon can make it to order a new one, the more likely they are to get your business. If I'm cooking and I run out of flour, I'm not going to stop cooking, pull out my phone, unlock it, swipe over to the screen that has the Amazon app on it, tap that, wait for it to launch, click the button for Fresh, and then finally type (or speak). I'm just going to make a mental note and buy it later from Safeway.

But with Dash, it's just grab the Dash from whatever convenient location you keep it, speak into the Dash, and put it back. That's easy enough that I would do it, and Amazon would get my purchase.

Unfortunately, Amazon Fresh really kind of sucks (at least in SF), so the whole premise is flawed. Oh well.