Amazon Unveils Barcode-Scanning, Voice-Recording Grocery Gadget

What's This?

By Chris Taylor2014-04-04 22:16:32 UTC

Not content with unveiling its Amazon Fire TV set-top box earlier this week, Amazon casually dropped a new gadget into the tech realm Friday — the Amazon Dash.

The Dash is part barcode-scanner, part voice recorder. It connects to Amazon's grocery delivery service, AmazonFresh, which is currently only available in Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

See also: Amazon Fire TV: Questions and Answers

The promise of the Dash, as you can see in the (rather annoyingly child-narrated) video above, is that you can scan anything you need to buy again in your kitchen before you run out. For anything you don't have, there's a voice-recording button. Press it and whatever you say will be stored as a search the next time you visit the AmazonFresh website.

The company seems to be trying to make the point that the Dash is simple enough for kids to use, and durable enough to survive regular kitchen-based wear and tear.

The Dash is currently free but "by invitation only," according to its website, and no release date has been announced yet. You can sign up to get in line for one. We're not quite at the stage where your fridge will automatically re-order your milk when it sees you're running low, but the Dash looks like the next best thing.

Topics: amazon, amazon fresh, Gadgets, Tech

Image: Amazon