Amazon, the mega-retailer, is pushing back the conventional health and fitness tracking technology companies, striving to dominate the fitness space. It has launched a subscription fitness product - Amazon Halo - which encourages users to improve their health and wellness.

Amazon Halo is a comprehensive health and fitness service which uses a smartphone and screen-less Fitbit band to tell you about your body. There’s so much to Amazon Halo, so we have tried to list down everything including what it is, how it works, what are the features, and how it has dealt with the privacy concerns.

Amazon Halo: Key Features

• Activity Tracking: Amazon Halo can track your movement and heart rate throughout the day. Since the band does not have a display, you will have to download an app to see your metrics.
• 3D Body Scans: Amazon Halo is capable of capturing 3D scans of your body, and using AI, it can determine the fat percentage, which is deemed as a key health indicator.
• Sleep Analysis: Amazon Halo can analyze how well you sleep based on your body temperature, heart rate, and movements. You will also receive a sleep score each morning.
• Tone analysis: This is a promising feature if you have ever wondered how you sound to others. The mics on the Amazon Halo band listens to your voice, and the app will let you know when it senses trends or changes in your communication.

Design

The new Amazon Halo looks similar to the Fitbit Charge 4 and has three colours: Black, Pink, and Grey where the straps are interchangeable. The sensors are placed in a stainless-steel unit beneath the fabric. The side of the water-resistant sensors has LED indicator lights, two microphones, and a single button. This fitness tracker is one of the simplest ones just like the early wearables did not have a display, but is now available with advanced features.

Activity tracking

If you have not downloaded the Halo app, the band can collect the basic fitness data from walks and runs. But if you want to track the other activities, you need to launch workouts via the app. When you exercise at a given intensity for a given duration, Halo will reward you with activity points.

Fat Scanning

In addition to the above features, the Halo app uses the handset’s cameras to get 3D scans of the body and tell the body fat percentage. All you need to do is take a picture of the body, and the app will scan it to offer a body fat percentage reading. Amazon has claimed the readings to be as accurate as of the ones you will get from a doctor.

Sleep tracking

If you wear the band to bed, the app can provide sleep analysis, identifying the various stages of sleep and assign a sleep score based on the quality of your nap. It also tracks down your body temperature. Amazon Halo will chalk out your temperature, along with the movement and heart rate to help you keep a tab on what affects your sleep. Your sleep monitoring with a sleep score and scientifically-backed challenges will help you find a workout program that’s right for you.

Tone analysis

One of the newest features of Amazon Halo is tone analysis. The software uses the built-in mics on the band to analyze your tone, and let you know the trends and changes in your voice and determine whether you feel positive enough to get through the day. You have the option to turn it off, but Amazon says its voice analysis tone feature can inform social and emotional well-being.

What are the privacy concerns with Amazon Halo?

When a device involves body scans, always-on microphones, and a tech giant, we are bound to have security issues. Amazon knows this and has already outlined what privacy will look like for future Halo users.

The Halo data is encrypted in transit and in the cloud, and sensitive data, like body scan images, are deleted once processed. Meanwhile, voice analysis is processed entirely on the user's smartphone and deleted after. Nothing is recorded for playback — users can't even listen to their own speech samples. All Amazon Halo data can be managed and deleted in the Halo app. Furthermore, your Halo account is also separate from your Amazon Prime one, so anyone you share your Prime account with won't be able to access your private health information.

Final Verdict

Amazon Halo combines the basics of health tracking with voice analysis and body scans, standing out from the rest. With so many features, Amazon Halo is certainly going to become one of the most preferred wearable devices.

So, if you want to join a service that offers deep and detailed insights on your sleep, body fat, and voice, Amazon Halo is your pick.