Hacking Amazon’s $5 Dash Button to order Domino’s Pizza

An Amazon Dash Button is a $5 button with a battery and a WiFi connection inside that Amazon wants you to stick inside your home to order common household items. You can order anything from Gatorade, to diapers, to Glad Trash Bags, or Bounty Paper Towel for example. They are super easy, you just push the button and two days later, you receive your item! Also, while they are $5 to purchase, you get $5 off your first order with them, so they are basically free!

While this all sounds fine and dandy, I recently read an article on Medium by Ted Benson:

How I Hacked Amazon’s $5 WiFi Button to track Baby Data

Once I saw this, I just thought “wow, that’s really cool!” and that was that. Then one day, a few weeks later, at work someone posted in a “chit-chat” Slack Channel about a Domino’s Pizza Node.js API and a lightbulb went off in my head! I immediately wanted a way to order a pizza at the push of a button.

My logic behind the need for a pizza at the push of a button went back to my college days and when I was living in Chicago going out and drinking quite a bit. Sometimes when you drink a little too much, you have the chance of getting a hangover in the morning and boy, oh boy waking up and getting out of bed can be a struggle. One time, in Chicago, I even ordered McDonald’s via Postmates because I couldn’t bring myself to bare the sunlight and put on proper clothes to leave the apartment. So I thought all of the technologically advanced frat bros and party-goers would appreciate being able to order their favorite meal from Dominos at the push of a button!

Here is the final result! The actual pressing of the button is kind of chopped off at the bottom of the screen. :/

Creating the Node App

I am using a few npm modules to listen for the button press and place the order: RIAEvangelist’s dominos and also hortinstein’s Node-Dash-Button. These two individuals basically put the entire thing together for me and it was all about taking the two, mashing them together, and creating a very cool hack! Both of them have in depth examples of how to use the two, and on my GitHub I have the example of using them both together!

This article shows you what you can do with a Raspberry Pi to set this up as a node server running all the time on your network and it literally would be the press of a button whenever you wanted! You can see the example I made on GitHub here:

bhberson/pizzadash

All you have to do is take the `app.js` file, edit it with your own information, customize your favorite order, get it up and running either locally on your own personal computer or local server, and then BAM! You can order as many pizzas 🍕 at the press of a button as you want!

Here is the final result of an order setup with a Medium Two Topping Pizza and Cheesy Bread while using a coupon!

Using the example app, I bet you can wire up a PizzaDash button like I did in about ten minutes with your own custom order. That’s pretty awesome to think about since you were never intended to do that with these little pieces of plastic. ALSO! If you think about any other ideas or uses for an Amazon Dash Button, let me know in the comments or shoot me an email. Some ideas I’ve thought about is ordering my favorite Jimmy John’s sandwich or Chinese takeout? The possibilities are endless!

PS. Feel free to check out my other article doing a similar hack as well as wiring up an AWS IoT Button to order beer at the press of a button with an alcohol delivery startup, Drizly!

PPS. This article has been featured on The Verge, Gizmodo, Consumerist, and Lifehacker among many others.