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by cushychicken 4052 days ago
To me, the choice to use off the shelf hardware reflects Amazon's dedication to lean values. In this sense, they're doing the absolute minimum (using off-the-shelf hardware instead of spending 2 years spinning their own SoC) to verify that their product (on-demand household commodity ordering) is actually something people want. Makes a lot more sense in terms of turnaround time and money - if the idea proves valuable, they can start expending the effort to reduce costs through SoC development.

As the top commenter pointed out, though, I don't think they would really need to spend the time recouping those margins - since all the brands signed up for this service are big-name brands owned by Proctor and Gamble, it could indicate a relationship wherein P&G helps them absorb some of the costs of the hardware in exchange for what is effectively marketing.
1 comments
joezydeco 4051 days ago
What's also interesting is that the circuit board left on the micro-SMA connector for an external antenna.

The early press releases mention deeper hardware integration with consumer products. I'm guessing they're going to be dropping this board into other things besides the Dash product.

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cushychicken 4051 days ago
That's actually an RF testpoint, not an SMA connector (by which I think you mean UF.L connector, like this guy: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/U.FL_conn...). It functions like a switch that is closed when the RF tester connects to it.
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joezydeco 4051 days ago
If you were to hook one of these up to the connector:

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11320

Would it not function as an external wifi antenna?

(and yeah you're right about the ufl. thanks for the correction)

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cushychicken 4051 days ago
In a sense, you're right - it's meant as a quick release testpoint for conducted radio performance on a manufacturing line. Theoretically, you COULD hook up an antenna to it, but you'd have to know some substantive details about the integrated PCB antenna (impedance, center frequency, etc) to get good or even comparable performance out of the external one. Probably not to a male UFL connector, in any case - I'm 99% sure this type of connector is not compatible with UFL.

Mileage may vary, of course, but in my experience this type of connector is more frequently used to get conducted power RF measurements in manufacturing settings.

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