Better late than never? Amazon’s voice-controlled Dash Wand zaps into London

By Andy Boxall Published July 28, 2016

amazon dash wand london launch news — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Remember the Amazon Dash wand? It launched in selected U.S. states in early 2014, and is a more versatile precursor to the Amazon Dash buttons, with which you can order specific goods from the online retailer. Now, more than two years later, the Dash wand is back and has been zapped into London, hot on the heels of AmazonFresh, the home delivery grocery shopping service.

The Dash wand may be old, but that doesn’t make it any less helpful, or any less relevant to Amazon’s continued obsession with the world of voice control. The wand is held in the hand and listens as you recite a shopping list, adding each item to your Amazon basket ready for online checkout later on. The clever part is, if you don’t want to chat to the Dash, it has a barcode scanner in its base, so you can zap away at all the products you want. If you keep using it, the wand will learn about your preferences.

Related: Read our review of the Amazon Echo

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Since the Dash wand was introduced in 2014, we’ve seen Amazon make further moves into voice controlled devices, which can be used to order goods from the company without spending all your time in an app or on the website. The Echo, Tap, and Dot all listen out for your commands, and each played a major part in Amazon’s most recent Prime Day deals, with the company offering further discounts to people ordering using one of the devices.

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For Londoners, the Dash wand is available for free to any Amazon Prime subscribers signed up for AmazonFresh, upon placing their second order, until the end of August. You’ll need to live in a particular part of the city to be eligible for AmazonFresh though, and the service costs an extra seven British pounds each month, along with a 40 British pounds minimum order limit. Does this indicate Amazon is preparing to launch Alexa and the Echo in the U.K.? Or is that also another two years away?

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Senior Mobile Writer

Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…

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