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LAVERA STEWART
Editor-in-Chief of the Gym Expert
As of a couple of days ago, as we mentioned Amazon joined the list of companies that produce health and fitness trackers. The Amazon Halo service consists of two things – a wristband and an Amazon Halo app that is compatible with both Android and iOS smartphones. For the first look, we can safely say that it is the most laconic, and even futuristic tracker that you could see. The tracker is quite small and doesn’t have a screen, but don’t catch that as a disadvantage. The absence of a screen is completely intentional because the gadget is designed to focus on your health and not to disturb you.
Amazon Halo Wristband in Detail
There are five main features offered by Amazon Halo. We are going now to look at fitness tracker features halo reviews to see what they are and how they work.
Amazon Halo – Measure activity, sleep, body composition, and tone of voice - Winter + Silver - Medium
- Membership includes body composition, tone of voice analysis, sleep & activity tracking, and more — free for 6 months. Auto-renews at $3.99/month + tax. To manage your membership, visit Your Account › Memberships & Subscriptions.
- Activity - Track the intensity & duration of your movement plus sedentary time.
- Sleep - Analyze patterns like how often you wake up during the night.
- Programs - At-home workouts, guided meditations, sleep sounds, and other ways to stay healthy from experts like Lifesum, SWEAT, and Headspace.
- Body Composition - Measure body fat percentage, a better indicator of health than weight or BMI alone.
Activity
As we already mentioned physical activity is the main reason why someone wants a fitness tracker. The activity feature on this particular gadget is a bit different from what you are used to though. Keep in mind that you need to be subscribed to the Halo app if you want to make sure that your activity is monitored properly.
How Does It Work?
The Amazon fitness tracker will automatically react to activities like running or walking. However, if you are planning to include any other activity in your routine you will have to add it manually to the app. Amazon Halo band does monitor your cardio activity as other trackers but instead of just tracking calories you burned or minutes you have been active it provides a point system. Through the heart monitor, the band tracks the level of activity you are doing and you will earn points based on that. The more rigorous activity you get more points. Unlike other trackers, Amazon health wearable offers you a weekly instead of a daily goal. This tracker will closely monitor how active you are and if detects eight or more hours of inactivity it will start to reduce your score. An important thing to know also is that the amazon fitness tracker won’t alert you in case you have some heart condition.
Sleep
The Halo wristband also monitors sleep. It does that by how much time you spent sleeping, what is happening in different stages of sleep, and how long you are awake. Same as with the activity tracker doesn’t provide you with day to day but rather weekly results.
How Does It Work?
The sleep tracker functions pretty much the same as the activity tracker. There are however some differences. You can for example see detailed information from different stages of sleep as well as other important measures. Amazon Halo also measures your temperature during sleep. But doing that three nights in a row while you are sleeping it can give you an accurate value of your body temperature when you are awake.
Body
The Amazon Halo offers you the possibility to measure your body fat and muscle mass index. This is possible because of the app that uses your phone’s camera. Be informed that this way to calculate BMI is as accurate as the one your doctor will make. Let’s see how it works.
How Does It Work?
So first you get instructed what to wear – tight clothes or underwear. Then the app makes 3D scans of your body using the phone’s camera. Finally, then Amazon Halo uses AI to analyze the scans and inform you about the situation. The app can also provide you with images on how your body should change in case you need to gain or lose fat or muscles.
The Halo comes with two microphones that can pick up on your voice while you are speaking and then analyze it to see the differences in intensity, pitch, rhythm, etc. The app can then give you the report that will show whether you sound positive, negative, or neutral. To activate this feature you need to go to Tone settings and create a voice profile.
Halo Tone Reviews
Sometimes we are not aware of the emotions conveyed by the tone of our voice. It is possible that you may have sounded agitated at the last meeting even if you didn’t want to. With Amazon Halo, you don’t have to wonder anymore because it offers the possibility to analyze the emotions in your voice using AI.
This features where Alexa can determine the tone of your voice and react accordingly have already announced (https://www.geekwire.com/2020/amazons-alexa-voice-assistant-changing-tone-pandemic/)
Labs
Amazon Halo includes something called the Labs section. This is a selection of different health and fitness goals that you can choose from. Different partner companies participated in this section but not Apple or Google for the time being.
How Does It Work?
There are different types of labs. Many of them are designed as a kind of challenge to help you improve your lifestyle habits. Some of the partners that you will find are Mayo Clinic, Headspace, etc. When you complete the challenge the information will be shared with the partners. However, this data will be anonymous.
Amazon Halo Features
Technical Details
|
|
| Weight |
Capsule weighs 18 grams; the weight of a small band is 5.2 g, medium 5.4 and large 6 grams |
| Halo Band sizes available |
The fabric of a small band is 130 -155mm circumference; medium 145 – 180 mm and large 170 -220mm. Sport – small 130 – 180 mm; medium and large 160 -230mm |
| Halo Band material |
Nylon, polyester, and spandex; silicone |
| Battery life |
Up to seven days (tone disabled); up to 2 days when a tone is enabled |
| Water resistance |
Possible to swim with it (up to 50m) |
| Bluetooth |
Compatible with 5.0 Bluetooth |
| Audio |
2 built-in microphones |
| What’s included in the box |
Sensor, band, USB charger clip, and a quick start guide |
| Warranty |
1 year limited warranty |
Design & Hardware
The Amazon Halo band comes with:
- temperature sensor;
- heart rate monitor;
- microphones;
- LED indicator;
- accelerometer;
- button to switch the microphones on and off.
It is waterproof and comes with a battery that can last for the entire week. As we mentioned earlier it doesn’t have a screen which gives it a bit of a simple look. It also doesn’t come with GPS, Wi-Fi, or any kind of voice control such as Amazon Alexa. It communicates with the phone via Bluetooth.
How Will Data Privacy Problem Be Solved in Amazon Halo?
It is indeed interesting and useful to have these body and tone features as examples of how Artificial Intelligence works. However, this raises the question of the protection of privacy. Generally, when it comes to your health information you don’t want to share it with anyone except your healthcare provider and maybe someone else you trust. Amazon assures you that they have thought about privacy because they offer you the possibility to refuse data share with them and every other third party. They say that scans and voice aren’t stored on the cloud in any case but only locally on your phone. And if some information is on the cloud you can easily access and delete it whenever you want.
Amazon Halo review: Battery life
According to the manufacturer, the device can last about seven days with the microphone off and about two days with it on. In fact, this does not correspond to reality, it is better to charge the device every night if you are going to use microphones.
Is Subscription Necessary for Using Amazon Halo?
Amazon Halo on its own won’t work unless you download the app. You can download it on your smartphone regardless of whether it is Android or iOS. Initially, you will have a free trial of Amazon Halo subscription that will last for six months and provide you basic features. There is a monthly subscription with all the features we discussed before. If you like you can also buy an additional fabric band or sports halo bands.
Now when it comes to the app you need to know that after a 6 months free trial period you will need to buy Amazon Halo subscription especially if you want to benefit from more advanced features. By subscribing you will be able to choose from the wide selection of Amazon labs that are created by different partner companies.
Wrapping Up
As you can see Amazon is finally also on the list of companies that are enabling you to take better care of your health and fitness level. Amazon Halo in 2021 is a nice and affordable little gadget that can be pretty useful for beginners as well as people who already have experience in exercising. We hope that you enjoyed our review and that you will revisit us as we are preparing plenty of other interesting texts.