Amazon Launches Automatic Supply Replenishment Service for Connected Devices

Brother printers, a General Electric dishwasher, Whirlpool smart dishwasher and Gmate Smart blood glucose monitor are among the first devices available for Amazon’s Dash Replenishment program, the retailer said Tuesday. Under Dash Replenishment, connected devices automatically order physical goods from Amazon when supplies are running low, the company said. A Brother smart printer will order toner or ink, for instance, and a GE smart dishwasher will request detergent when predetermined levels are reached, said Amazon. Customers who own one of 45 Brother smart printers can start using the service right away, and the GE and Gmate devices will be Dash-capable by the end of the month. Customers sign up to activate the service. Amazon will continue to add devices to the program through the year, said Daniel Rausch, Amazon Services director. Other manufacturers previously announced for Dash Replenishment: Samsung, Brita, August, Brita, Clever Pet, Oster, Petnet, Samsung, Sealed Air, Sutro, Thync and Whirlpool. Purell maker Gojo is launching a development project to connect smart dispensers with Dash to track the supply level of soap and hand sanitizer refills and automatically order refills when supplies are low, Amazon said. For device makers and developers, Dash Replenishment Service APIs (application program interfaces) are available for integration into any device that can connect to the Internet, either directly or through a proxy, Amazon said. Developers can begin an integration with a minimum of 10 lines of code using HTML containers and REST (representational state transfer) API calls, it said. Amazon billed Dash as a way for device makers to place orders on behalf of customers without having to build the back-end infrastructure to fulfill orders by leveraging its authentication and payment systems, customer service and fulfillment network.