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I think some do use regular wifi, especially the amazon ones, but with a button you have an advantage where you could just stay idle and off the network most of the time, and only connect to send an event when pressed.

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That likely increases your latency by a fair bit. Most of my devices take a second-ish to connect, configure the WiFi stack and start sending data.

I’m not sure I’d want a full second of latency on button presses. I would have figured Amazon used BTLE to the Alexa and used it as a BT to WiFi gateway

BTLE and/or their IoT mesh network (Sidewalk?) would be a good way to go too, but if it's just a button to reorder laundry detergent or something then I don't think even a 30 second delay would be a deal killer for most people.

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