Amazon Dash is a magic wand that conjures up groceries, delivered to your door

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Hey, I’m starving. Is Amazon delivering food in the UK yet?

You’ve been able to buy eats and drinks on Amazon UK for years, but its “proper” grocery service, AmazonFresh, has only just arrived on these shores. A true competitor to the likes of Ocado, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, it’s limited to a few London postcodes at the moment – and with the Dash, it just got much easier to make an order.

How so?

The Dash is a clever little device. It’s a pocket-sized barcode scanner and voice recognition dictaphone, essentially – albeit one that’s built for robust household use. It lets you add products to your AmazonFresh basket by either saying its name or scanning a barcode using its LEDs. AmazonFresh sells over 130,000 items – not just food and drink, but health, beauty and household products too – so there’s a good chance that anything you scan will be available.

How does the Dash work?

The device is Wi-Fi-enabled, so you’ll need to be within router range for it to work – this isn’t something you’re supposed to take out of the house, really. The idea is to scan barcodes of products you already have at home but need re-stocking. Your spaghetti supplies running low? Scan the packet and, the next time you login to Amazon online or via the company’s app, your pasta will be waiting in your basket.

Sure beats making a list. How do I get one?

Well, the Dash is usually priced at £35, but until 28 August Amazon is giving it away to any customer who makes at least two AmazonFresh orders. AmazonFresh, meanwhile, is available to Prime customers for £6.99 a month (after an initial 30-day free trial), with deliveries free for all orders over £40. Right you are.

And do you think this means the bonkers Dash Button is making its way across the pond too? I’m dreaming of ordering toilet paper by hitting a button on top of my loo…

While Amazon UK has yet to confirm that, we’d be very surprised if the Dash Button didn’t follow the Dash. Watch this space, lazybones.

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Tech journalism's answer to The Littlest Hobo, I've written for a host of titles and lived in three different countries in my 15 years-plus as a freelancer. But I've always come back home to Stuff eventually, where I specialise in writing about cameras, streaming services and being tragically addicted to Destiny.