Gear Up on IoT: Microsoft Will Pay For Your Apple Watch + HoloLens is No. 1

Five IoT news bites to start your Wednesday.

Hate your Apple watch? Microsoft is willing to give users up to $250 in credit for trading Apple's device for a Microsoft Band 2, according to Microsoft's web site. Other brands can be swapped as well from Sony's Smartwatch 3 ($35) to the Fitbit Flex. ($10) No telling how long the deal on the Apple Watch will hold.

HoloLens is the most popular VR headset — and it's not even live yet. Interest in the device, however, lead the field with more than 50 million visits to Microsoft's web site for news on the gadget in 2015 — compared to 30 million for Facebook's Oculus, according to research firm SimiliarWeb.

Amazon's Dash is now fully automated, able to order replacements — on their own — when low. Brother printers, 45 of them, will automatically ping Amazon through Dash to reorder toner and ink. By the end of the month, GE washers will do the same for detergent and the Gmate SMART blood glucose monitors will order testing strips and needles used to test the blood.

Drone delivery? Considered the future of how consumers will get packages. Yet international shipper DHL's planned test in Germany yesterday was scrubbed, says The Wall Street Journal. The cause? Snow and sudden cold.

Finally, remember NYC's Wi-Fi launch we mentioned last week? It's live — well, along four blocks of Third Avenue. Called Link NYC, the service has another eight years before it's across the entire city. But it's fast — and free. Boom.