Amazon has introduced a wristband for health and fitness tracking called Halo, alongside a subscription service and smartphone app.
Amazon is a well-known American multinational technology company based in Seattle, Washington. The company focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.
Up to date, it is considered one of the Big Four technology companies, along with Google, Apple, and Facebook. Today is different. Amazon has entered the health and fitness world with Halo.
Meet Halo, Amazon’s new fitness tracker
Amazon’s new health service and fitness band offer a modern take on health metrics. One of the great features includes a body fat analysis using your phone’s camera and voice analysis to determine how you sound to others.
The band itself looks a lot like a screenless Fitbit tracker, but with a few different elements, as reported by CNET. Halo has temperature sensing, much like Fitbit’s newest smartwatch, the Fitbit Sense.
The new fitness tracker also features a microphone that continually scans a wearer’s voice to determine the emotional tone. So whether you’re sad, happy, or angry, Halo can track it.
Amazon Halo Fitness Band plus a membership to the AI-powered analytics part will start at $65 for the first six months. After that period, $3.99 a month will be required.
The subscription to Halo includes a basic fitness band that has one button, no screen, and tracks your heart rate, steps, and temperature. The lack of a screen means you’ll have to rely on the mobile app to see all your data. However, it does a lot more than count your steps and log your weight.
Fitness tracker main goal
Amazon has spent several years preparing for this fitness tracker. Melissa Cha, Amazon’s vice president at Halo, said the company already had expertise around machine learning and computer vision, but expanding into health required a whole new set of hires.
“We did a global search to find the best experts,” she said. “We found cardiologists, fitness experts, and people who had spent their careers researching sleep and wellness.”
Unlike the Apple Watch, which encourages users to close rings, Amazon Halo uses a points system when tracking exercises. The essential features of the Halo band will be familiar to anybody who’s used a fitness tracker.
The device comes in a variety of styles, and Cha said it’s meant to be kept on all the time — it’s water-resistant for showers or swimming, and it shouldn’t be caught on clothes or bedsheets.
Images used courtesy of CNBC Television/YouTube Screenshot