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Tech

Amazon’s Button for Auto-Ordering Condoms Is the Future We Deserve

Their utility may depend on whether or not you have kids or pets.
Image: Amazon

You now live in a world where, with the push of a button connected to your Amazon account, you can have condoms, Red Bull, and Slim Jims all delivered to your door in the blink of an eye.

On Thursday, Amazon added nearly 80 new brands to its lineup of Dash Buttons, tiny devices you place around the house and press whenever you're running low on everyday household supplies like paper towels and batteries. The new brands include Brawny, Charmin, Doritos and Trojan. Amazon has a full list of the new brands here.

Amazon, as is typically the case, is rather vague about how well Dash Buttons are doing, saying only that sales generated by the buttons are up 75 percent over the last three months.

While it's easy to say that pushing a button to order, say, Red Bull may not be the most aspirational implementation of our Internet of Things future, having the ability to place a Dash Button near my dog Winston's food cabinet to re-order supplies when they're running low is very tempting. (Alas, his specific brand of dog food doesn't yet have a Dash Button.) Same thing goes for busy families with young children that are constantly running low on, say, paper towels or diapers.

Technically, Dash Buttons costs $4.99 each, but Amazon will credit your account for that same amount upon purchasing them. You do need to be a member of Amazon Prime, the company's $99 per year service that includes free two-day shipping on many items as well as access to a Netflix-like streaming video library, to make use of the Dash Buttons.

Now if you run out of Doritos and Red Bull to fuel your late night Diablo 3 session (ahem), you have only yourself to blame.