(Image courtesy of Amazon.)
This isn’t Amazon’s first venture into the world of IoT buttons. The company released its Dash Buttons for ordering specific products with a simple push. However, this new move to bring push-button automation to AWS represents a new, much bolder push.
In Amazon’s view, the AWS button represents a tool that can be programmed to perform any action that’s possible to execute on the net. Therefore, it appears that it will be able to tap into more functionality on the AWS IoT platform than its previous buttons. Essentially, with the AWS button users could map any action they’d like to a button and have it at ready whenever it might be needed.
While that might mean one AWS button triggers a series of supply orders for a manufacturing plant, it could also mean that another button could alert a designer a world away that something’s gone wrong in a machining operation.
That’s a pretty powerful little button, but Amazon’s big push isn’t without its critics.
Although this recent release shows Amazon’s commitment to developing IoT infrastructure, some have pointed out that the AWS button has major flaws that should halt adoption. The biggest complaint so far has been lobbed by tech news site The Next Web, which said that AWS’s button is not only expensive to operate (2 cents per push), its battery life is also too short and isn’t rechargeable.
While The Next Web might be right about Amazon’s IoT button, I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet. With some time and a bit more engineering, Amazon might be able to come up with a more sustainable IoT gadget. Given Amazon’s push into the IoT platform market with AWS IoT, deploying examples of IoT gadgets that please consumers is certainly in the company’s best interest.
For now, IoT is still in its fledgling phase, and gadgets like the AWS IoT button are to be expected. Still, in the coming years a great deal more maturity will have to be shown by IoT hardware makers if this new product design trend is to finally gain wider industrial and commercial adoption.
I imagine that maturity will arrive shortly.