Geek Girl Report: Grocery Shopping Goes High-Tech – Amazon Dash And Other Useful Grocery Apps

If you've ever had to mess with a clumsy shopping list at the supermarket, or if you lost it in your basket somewhere, or ever held up an entire aisle full of people because you had to stop and check items off your list, you may want to pay attention to this. Amazon is hoping to make those clumsy lists a thing of the past with its newest device: Dash.

Amazon Dash is a wi-fi enabled, wand-shaped device that allows you to do your grocery shopping from home. The Dash comes with a barcode scanner and a microphone that allows you to simply scan a grocery item's barcode, or just tell the device what you want to buy, and instantly place an order for said item on Amazon's online shopping cart. No more juggling grocery lists or stopping in the middle of the aisle to check off items; just a quick scan and a click, and you're done.

Now here's the bad news: as cool as this all sounds, you won't be able to use it if you live in West Texas, or about 90% of the continental U.S for that matter. Dash is exclusively for members of Amazon Fresh, Amazon's grocery delivery service that, at the moment, only works in southern California, San Francisco and Seattle. And even then, you have to receive an invite from Amazon themselves in order to get a Dash. Granted, the product is still in its testing phase, but I'm hoping that Amazon will lighten up and not only make the device available to the general public, but also make it useable with major supermarket chains like HEB, Albertson's or our very own United.

Fortunately, scanning barcodes to make a shopping list isn't a completely new concept. There are lots of apps out there that can help you do the same thing as Amazon Dash, without being limited to just the Amazon Fresh service. So if Dash sounds interesting to you, take a look at these apps as well:

Grocery iQ

Grocery iQ is one of the best-selling grocery apps out there, and works in conjunction with Coupons.com to not only help you keep your groceries organized, but also get you the best price.

ShopWell

For the more health-conscious consumer, ShopWell allows you to scan grocery barcodes with your smartphone camera and see if there are healthier options available.

OurGroceries

OurGroceries lets you share your shopping lists with the rest of the family, and even keeps track of your favorite recipes and what you'll need to make them.

Be sure and check out The Geek Girl Report every Tuesday morning only on KFYO.com. And be sure to keep up with me on Twitter as well: @the_littlest_a.