Two-minute assessment
On the finish of 2020, Amazon quietly launched its health wearable, the Amazon Halo – however solely within the US. With out a display screen, it’s a pure exercise tracker slightly than a smartwatch, however the partnered app has a number of neat options that you simply received’t discover on some other health gadget.
Surprisingly, these options don’t embrace the combination you’d anticipate with an Amazon gadget – there’s no Alexa help, no voice management, and no integration of your related Amazon account.
As a substitute, Halo’s standout options embrace monitoring your voice for indicators of stress or pressure as you discuss all through the day, and utilizing the paired telephone app to take pictures of your physique to calculate your physique fats proportion. Should you’re already fascinated by privateness considerations at this level, Amazon has insisted that each options are opt-in (higher nonetheless, Amazon explicitly laid out what information is and isn’t saved on the gadget here).
Should you simply need the fundamentals, the Halo can observe your health exercise and sleep, and you’ll view your stats on the related app. There’s an non-compulsory subscription service out there via the app (you get six months free together with your Halo buy, and it’s $4/ round £3 / AU$5 a month thereafter) which offers exercise courses in addition to Labs, a patchwork assortment of wellness and vitamin mini-courses that purpose to enhance your health and sleep scores (Halo’s two key well being metrics – extra on these under).
But it surely’s regarding what number of options you do not get and not using a subscription: you’ll solely have entry to a restricted collection of Labs and neither the Physique-scanning nor Tone options. You additionally received’t get to see your health or sleep scores, the latter of which appear easy sufficient to be included as customary. The Halo is not ineffective with out subscribing, as it may possibly nonetheless rely steps, coronary heart fee, energy, and time asleep/awake, per Amazon’s FAQ. A six-month free trial with buy allows you to check out the service, except you got or got the Halo secondhand.
The Halo is a screen-less tracker – it’s mainly an rectangular pod in your wrist with a single bodily button, an LED mild, and a microphone, with a cloth wrist strap wrapped over it (or rubber, in case you go for the fitness-type band). Provided that there’s no show, the button is barely used for muting your mic for privateness whereas utilizing the non-compulsory Tone function, which periodically listens to your vocal depth and may be set as much as nudge you when it detects you’re in a temper.
The Halo is comfy sufficient to put on, although it’s a bit vast and may rub up towards the wrist joint, and may require somewhat adjustment earlier than it sits proper. After that, you’re more likely to neglect it’s there, given that you simply received’t be its display screen for insights – as a substitute, you’ll have to drag out your telephone and swap to the Halo app for these.
Relatively than a shortcoming, that is the important thing to the Halo’s attraction. Like different fundamental trackers the Halo lacks vibration, so it may possibly’t be used for reminders, notifications, or wake-up alarms. It’s a refreshingly minimalist expertise.
Amazon Halo value and launch date
Amazon launched the Halo in August 2020 and began seeding it to early customers earlier than absolutely releasing it within the US in December 2020. It hasn’t expanded anyplace else to this point, though Amazon says it will likely be out there in different areas later.
The Halo prices $99 (round £75 / AU$130) and is available in three colour combos, cut up between the material band and paired sensor capsule: black/onyx, a pinkish ‘blush’/rose gold, and light-weight grey ‘winter’/silver. It additionally has sporty health bands made from a neoprene-like rubber materials (pocked with holes to save lots of weight) which are available in quite a lot of colours – ours was black on the skin with a mint inexperienced on the underside.
Design
The Amazon Halo {hardware} is a metallic capsule concerning the measurement of different health trackers. It has a hemispherical silhouette: an interior flat aspect with sensors that presses towards the pores and skin, and an outer curved aspect with prongs to hook right into a wrist strap.
The strap wraps over the gadget, however since there’s no show, that’s not an issue. What you see of the tracker itself are flat metallic edges, with the aspect supposed to face the viewer that includes a light-weight on the left, a microphone on the appropriate, and a single button. Its solely goal? Maintain it till the sunshine blinks pink to show off the mic, maintain it till it blinks inexperienced to show it on.
The Halo isn’t too heavy, and also you get used to carrying it, even at evening – which you’ll be doing, for the reason that intensive battery life means you may put on it for the higher a part of every week with out charging. Its rectangular form means it may be uncomfortable on bony wrists, and its flat sides are likely to catch on jacket cuffs greater than a lot of the round-edged health trackers and smartwatches we’ve tried. That’s not a dealbreaker, simply one thing to bear in mind.
The Halo is bathe protected, although we didn’t get a precise determine on its water- and dust-resistance. The material straps that include the wearable are additionally wonderful to take into the water; they appear just like the woven artificial cloth discovered wrapped round good audio system and different tech merchandise, and lock in place comfortably with a hook-and-loop fastening.
The fitness-style band (bought individually) is a silicone texture pockmarked with holes and a way more commonplace tang buckle system, and whereas it’s meant for exercises, we most well-liked this one for day by day use regardless of the bands being pretty simple to modify out.
As beforehand talked about, the wearable doesn’t have any haptic vibration – and and not using a show, there’s no approach for the Halo to nudge you for reminders or notifications, routing all interplay via the smartphone app. Not like different health trackers, it’s inconceivable to work together with the Halo itself – and because you’ll solely should recharge it as soon as every week, you’ll possible neglect it’s there. We examined it whereas carrying one other smartwatch, with health on our thoughts, and it barely registered in our day-to-day life.
Health
As is likely to be anticipated from {hardware} that isn’t designed to be interactive, the Halo passively tracks exercises and feeds all data to the telephone app it’s paired with. It is a foundational selection that defines how the gadget is used and how much suggestions you’ll get utilizing it.
If you need a tool that provides you easy-to-access information in the midst of a exercise, the Halo isn’t actually for you. Sure, you may nudge the app to sync together with your gadget and show your exercise factors progress in addition to coronary heart fee, however that’s a careless solution to make the Halo work in a approach it’s not terribly supposed to. That’s as a result of the Halo isn’t supposed to trace moment-to-moment exercises, and even health over days.
As a substitute, the Halo makes use of a proprietary Health Rating counted each week, which you’ll see when opening the devoted smartphone app. Rating at the very least 150 factors after seven days and also you’ve met your aim (exceed it drastically and the app will enhance the aim). Relatively than simply counting train, ‘motion’ is counted throughout mild, medium, and heavy classes that add extra factors for extra strenuous exercise – however roughly, one minute of medium exercise (like strolling outside) will award below one level, and one minute of heavy exercise (like working) provides over some extent. (Mild exercise that doesn’t push you to exertion, like strolling across the workplace or grocery retailer, provides some extent each 20 minutes.)
For instance, in the future, I walked for twenty-four minutes so as to add 17 factors and ran for 28 minutes so as to add 40 factors. The Halo routinely tracked and correctly categorized each actions, however I’d additionally lifted weights for 10 minutes, which I had so as to add manually – this awarded me 10 factors. You’re additionally docked factors for being sedentary – sitting for eight hours at a time – and I misplaced 20 factors over every week. It is a refined nudge, and solely noticeable in Health Rating breakdowns.
The Halo’s Health Rating is predicated on normal suggestions from the American Coronary heart Affiliation that adults ought to train for 150 minutes each week, in addition to pointers from the World Well being Group and CDC on bodily exercise. For the on a regular basis person, the Halo is a philosophical break from different health wearables that nudge customers into strenuous exercise each day. As a substitute, the Health Rating accounts for off days while you simply don’t have it in you to train, which is fairly thoughtful.
Amazon explains its rationale inside information playing cards on the Health Rating web page (click on on the Health Rating ring within the app’s residence web page to get there). These playing cards are unfold all through the app, and are pretty simple to know.
Your Halo subscription additionally offers entry to guided exercises (with video and/or audio instruction), that are curiously positioned inside the ‘Uncover’ tab. Why? As a result of many are a part of the Labs self-improvement initiatives – extra on these later, however you may manually watch the guided exercises everytime you need, too.
The exercises, created by third-party corporations like Aaptiv and Orangetheory, fluctuate in depth and persona of the coaches, however they work equally to these from different recorded exercise companies like Apple Health Plus and obé.
Sleep
The Halo’s different health-related metric, seen front-and-center on the app’s residence display screen, is the Sleep Rating. The Halo measures high quality of sleep, accounting for complete time slept, how lengthy it took to go to sleep, time spent in every sleep stage, and the way typically you awakened, and offers you a rating between 1 and 100. Over 85 factors is an efficient evening of sleep, between that and 70 is nice, 69-50 is okay, and something much less Halo considers poor sleep.
There’s an information card within the app that explains the metric and all of the levels of sleep, in addition to suggestions to enhance your rating (and thus, your sleep), like adjusting the noise and temperature the place you’re bedding down. There are much more actionable packages in Labs, although they’re extra experimental low-key ideas than methods to make sure higher sleep.
We’ll be trustworthy; if we really feel horrible after an evening of sleep, it’s not too useful to have a quantity telling us precisely what number of factors we’ve come below what can be thought-about ‘good’ sleep. However it’s useful to see information like time asleep sans interruptions, time to go to sleep, and time awake. Even higher is the graph displaying how lengthy you spent in every sleep stage, in addition to the intervals spent awake – particularly in case you can determine exterior components (like sure furry intruders, say).
Options: Tone and Physique
The Amazon Halo has two options included with a subscription which might be each technically health-related however are actually not typical for health wearables to have: Tone and Physique.
Tone is the odder function, although it’s actually in Amazon’s wheelhouse to investigate voices. Tone allegedly measures your voice all through the day to trace your temper. Understand that turning this function on would require it to hear continuously on your voice, thus drastically decreasing the wearable’s battery time from seven days to 2 (or one, in case you ramp up Tone’s sensitivity to hear in additional regularly).
We didn’t discover the function useful sufficient to earn this intensive battery discount, although two days of battery life remains to be consistent with some smartwatches. Which may be completely different in case you discover it extra helpful to replicate in your tone of voice, each for inspecting your individual temper/psychological state and understanding the way you’re coming off to others, at the very least in accordance with the Halo.
Tone measures your vocal tone and phrase choice alongside two axes: positivity and power. Excessive positivity and power correlates with amusement and delight, however low positivity and power are for irritated or enraged moods. You’ll get a report every day indicating excessive and low factors, although you’ll have to recollect what was taking place when the Halo picked up in your moods. In that approach, it’s somewhat passive at one of the best of instances.
At worst, it’s not terribly helpful – as a result of proper now, when this reviewer and plenty of others world wide are working from residence or vacated workplaces, no one is speaking. That’s the character of locked-down residing. For what it’s price, the restricted outcomes we obtained have been uniformly low-energy, which makes loads of sense in a interval of world pandemic.
The Halo app can provide you suggestions in real-time, like in case you’re rehearsing for a presentation – simply click on the ‘Reside’ tab on the underside. Vocal samples are calculated on the telephone (not on servers) and are by no means shared with different Amazon groups, the corporate assured TechRadar.
The Physique function is a extra easy health function, although it’s actually sudden: the app prompts you to make use of your smartphone to take 4 pictures of your physique (entrance, again, and from both sides) in skintight clothes to calculate your physique fats proportion. Why? Amazon claims physique fats is a extra insightful metric than weight and even physique mass index (which doesn’t differentiate between fats and muscle).
It’s actually a formidable feat, because the 4 pictures are run via three algorithmic fashions to estimate your fats proportion and, with offered weight, calculate how a lot is ‘lean mass’ and the way a lot is ‘fats mass’, the latter of which is ostensibly extra.
The calculations additionally create a standalone 3D monochrome mannequin of your physique, in all its nearly-naked glory. Amazon asserted that, in a pilot examine, Weight Watchers followers who got entry to this function have been enthusiastic about it, because it gave them a transparent view of their physique from loads of angles.
Chances are you’ll discover this exposes your physicality in a way that’s frankly impolite, as our reviewer did, but it surely undeniably offers you extra visibility than a easy mirror would. When you’ve gotten your 3D scan, nevertheless, you may scroll right down to see a mannequin with a physique fats proportion slider to estimate your physique modifications ought to it enhance or lower, most likely for motivation and undoubtedly for terror.
Total, Physique is a captivating software of know-how out there in anybody’s smartphone (Amazon famous that the majority fashionable telephones, aside from some 2016-and-earlier telephones just like the LG Stylo 3, ought to have the ability to use it). It’s helpful so far as of us will need a digicam estimation of their physique fats proportion for their very own objectives.
So far as privateness goes, Physique scans are briefly and securely processed within the cloud (presumably AWS) after which routinely deleted after sending the outcomes to the person’s gadget, Amazon assured TechRadar. Which means a person’s well being information is gone ought to the gadget holding the info be misplaced or wiped, in order that they have the choice of storing it on-line via Amazon’s servers.
Maybe extra importantly, we’ve been assured that the Halo workforce doesn’t share any private information with some other Amazon workforce. Additional, person well being information is barely out there on the Halo app, not on Amazon.com, neither is it linked with a person’s private Amazon information.
Purchase it if…
You need a health tracker that received’t distract you
The Amazon Halo is a health tracker that tracks every little thing and not using a display screen or haptic suggestions. Should you don’t wish to be bugged by notifications, texts, or calls, the Halo is for you. Better of all, with the Tone function off, its battery lasts a full week.
You need an inexpensive health tracker that would preserve getting higher
The Amazon Halo within reason inexpensive for a health tracker – plus, most of its performance is positioned in its telephone app, which the Halo workforce would possibly develop with much more options.
You need fascinating monitoring and exercises rolled in a single
The Halo tracks vocal tone and sleep, in addition to health in motion slightly than exercise phrases, making for a extra intriguingly cohesive image of private well being and wellness.
Don’t purchase it if…
You need a fully-functional health smartwatch
This may appear apparent, however the Amazon Halo’s lack of a display screen and haptics means you may’t examine your exercises except you convey up your telephone and examine the app. If you need mid-workout updates in your wearable, look elsewhere.
You need a wearable with superior monitoring
The Halo screens coronary heart fee and motion, however that’s the place its monitoring ends. If you need a few of the extra superior options like blood oxygen measuring, attempt the Apple Watch 6 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 3.
You need a good cheaper fundamental health tracker
Sure, there are extra inexpensive health trackers which have fundamental fitness-monitoring capabilities than the Halo’s $99 (round £75 / AU$130) asking value – attempt the FitBit Inspire 2, which begins at $60 / £50 / AU$130.
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