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 fairly than a smartwatch, however the partnered app has a couple of neat options that you simply gained’t discover on some other health machine.
Surprisingly, these options don’t embody the combination you’d count on with an Amazon machine – there’s no Alexa help, no voice management, and no integration of your linked Amazon account.
As an alternative, Halo’s standout options embody monitoring your voice for indicators of stress or pressure as you discuss all through the day, and utilizing the paired cellphone app to take photographs of your physique to calculate your physique fats share. Should you’re already excited about privateness issues 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 machine here).
Should you simply need the fundamentals, the Halo can observe your health exercise and sleep, and you may view your stats on the linked app. There’s an non-compulsory subscription service accessible by the app (you get six months free along with your Halo buy, and it’s $4/ round £3 / AU$5 a month thereafter) which offers exercise lessons in addition to Labs, a patchwork assortment of wellness and vitamin mini-courses that goal to enhance your health and sleep scores (Halo’s two key well being metrics – extra on these beneath).
Nevertheless it’s regarding what number of options you aren’t getting with no subscription: you’ll solely have entry to a restricted choice of Labs and neither the Physique-scanning nor Tone options. You additionally gained’t get to see your health or sleep scores, the latter of which appear easy sufficient to be included as normal. The Halo is not ineffective with out subscribing, as it might nonetheless rely steps, coronary heart fee, energy, and time asleep/awake, per Amazon’s FAQ. A six-month free trial with buy helps you to check out the service, except you purchased or got the Halo secondhand.
The Halo is a screen-less tracker – it’s principally 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 the event 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 characteristic, which periodically listens to your vocal depth and might 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 large and may rub up in opposition to the wrist joint, and may require just a little adjustment earlier than it sits proper. After that, you’re prone to overlook it’s there, given that you simply gained’t be taking a look at its display screen for insights – as a substitute, you’ll have to tug out your cellphone and change to the Halo app for these.
Reasonably than a shortcoming, that is the important thing to the Halo’s attraction. Like different primary trackers the Halo lacks vibration, so it might’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 up to now, though Amazon says it will likely be accessible in different areas later.
The Halo prices $99 (round £75 / AU$130) and is available in three colour combos, break up between the material band and paired sensor capsule: black/onyx, a pinkish ‘blush’/rose gold, and lightweight grey ‘winter’/silver. It additionally has sporty health bands fabricated from a neoprene-like rubber materials (pocked with holes to avoid wasting weight) which are available in a wide range of colours – ours was black on the skin with a mint inexperienced on the underside.
Design
The Amazon Halo {hardware} is a metallic capsule in regards to the measurement of different health trackers. It has a hemispherical silhouette: an internal flat facet with sensors that presses in opposition to the pores and skin, and an outer curved facet with prongs to hook right into a wrist strap.
The strap wraps over the machine, however since there’s no show, that’s not an issue. What you see of the tracker itself are flat metallic edges, with the facet supposed to face the viewer that includes a lightweight on the left, a microphone on the best, and a single button. Its solely function? Maintain it till the sunshine blinks crimson 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 possibly can 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 an actual determine on its water- and dust-resistance. The material straps that include the wearable are additionally fantastic to take into the water; they appear much 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 each day use regardless of the bands being pretty simple to change out.
As beforehand talked about, the wearable doesn’t have any haptic vibration – and with no show, there’s no means for the Halo to nudge you for reminders or notifications, routing all interplay by the smartphone app. Not like different health trackers, it’s unattainable to work together with the Halo itself – and because you’ll solely must recharge it as soon as every week, you’ll possible overlook 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 info to the cellphone app it’s paired with. It is a foundational alternative that defines how the machine is used and how much suggestions you’ll get utilizing it.
If you’d like a tool that offers you easy-to-access data in the midst of a exercise, the Halo isn’t actually for you. Sure, you possibly can nudge the app to sync along with your machine and show your exercise factors progress in addition to coronary heart fee, however that’s a careless method to make the Halo work in a means 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 an alternative, the Halo makes use of a proprietary Health Rating counted each week, which you’ll be able to see when opening the devoted smartphone app. Rating a minimum of 150 factors after seven days and also you’ve met your purpose (exceed it drastically and the app will enhance the purpose). Reasonably 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 operating) provides over some extent. (Gentle exercise that doesn’t push you to exertion, like strolling across the workplace or grocery retailer, provides some extent each 20 minutes.)
For instance, someday, 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 mechanically 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 delicate nudge, and solely noticeable in Health Rating breakdowns.
The Halo’s Health Rating is predicated on common suggestions from the American Coronary heart Affiliation that adults ought to train for 150 minutes each week, in addition to tips 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 on daily basis. As an alternative, the Health Rating accounts for off days if you simply don’t have it in you to train, which is fairly thoughtful.
Amazon explains its rationale inside data playing cards on the Health Rating web page (click on on the Health Rating ring within the app’s dwelling 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 situated throughout the ‘Uncover’ tab. Why? As a result of many are a part of the Labs self-improvement initiatives – extra on these later, however you possibly can manually watch the guided exercises everytime you need, too.
The exercises, created by third-party corporations like Aaptiv and Orangetheory, fluctuate in depth and character of the coaches, however they work equally to these from different recorded exercise providers like Apple Health Plus and obé.
Sleep
The Halo’s different health-related metric, seen front-and-center on the app’s dwelling display screen, is the Sleep Rating. The Halo measures high quality of sleep, accounting for whole time slept, how lengthy it took to go to sleep, time spent in every sleep stage, and the way typically you awoke, and offers you a rating between 1 and 100. Over 85 factors is an effective evening of sleep, between that and 70 is nice, 69-50 is okay, and something much less Halo considers poor sleep.
There’s an data 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 applications in Labs, although they’re extra experimental low-key ideas than methods to make sure higher sleep.
We’ll be sincere; 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 data 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 the event you can establish 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 characteristic, although it’s actually in Amazon’s wheelhouse to research voices. Tone allegedly measures your voice all through the day to trace your temper. Needless to say turning this characteristic on would require it to hear always on your voice, thus drastically decreasing the wearable’s battery time from seven days to 2 (or one, in the event you ramp up Tone’s sensitivity to hear in additional continuously).
We didn’t discover the characteristic useful sufficient to earn this intensive battery discount, although two days of battery life continues to be in keeping with some smartwatches. That could be completely different in the event you discover it extra helpful to replicate in your tone of voice, each for inspecting your individual temper/psychological state and realizing the way you’re coming off to others, a minimum of in line 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 means, it’s just a little passive at the perfect 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 dwelling or vacated workplaces, no one is speaking. That’s the character of locked-down dwelling. For what it’s value, the restricted outcomes we obtained have been uniformly low-energy, which makes loads of sense in a interval of worldwide pandemic.
The Halo app may give you suggestions in real-time, like in the event you’re rehearsing for a presentation – simply click on the ‘Dwell’ tab on the underside. Vocal samples are calculated on the cellphone (not on servers) and are by no means shared with different Amazon groups, the corporate assured TechRadar.
The Physique characteristic is a extra simple health characteristic, although it’s actually sudden: the app prompts you to make use of your smartphone to take 4 photographs of your physique (entrance, again, and from all sides) in skintight clothes to calculate your physique fats share. 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 photographs are run by three algorithmic fashions to estimate your fats share and, with supplied 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 characteristic have been enthusiastic about it, because it gave them a transparent view of their physique from loads of angles.
You might discover this exposes your physicality in a way that’s frankly impolite, as our reviewer did, nevertheless it undeniably provides you extra visibility than a easy mirror would. When you’ve gotten your 3D scan, nevertheless, you possibly can scroll all the way down to see a mannequin with a physique fats share slider to estimate your physique adjustments ought to it enhance or lower, in all probability for motivation and positively for terror.
Total, Physique is a captivating utility of know-how accessible in anybody’s smartphone (Amazon famous that the majority fashionable telephones, excluding some 2016-and-earlier telephones just like the LG Stylo 3, ought to be capable of use it). It’s helpful so far as of us will desire a digital camera estimation of their physique fats share for their very own objectives.
So far as privateness goes, Physique scans are briefly and securely processed within the cloud (presumably AWS) after which mechanically deleted after sending the outcomes to the person’s machine, Amazon assured TechRadar. Which means a person’s well being information is gone ought to the machine holding the information be misplaced or wiped, so that they have the choice of storing it on-line by Amazon’s servers.
Maybe extra importantly, we’ve been assured that the Halo crew doesn’t share any private data with some other Amazon crew. Additional, person well being information is barely accessible on the Halo app, not on Amazon.com, neither is it linked with a person’s private Amazon information.
Purchase it if…
You desire a health tracker that gained’t distract you
The Amazon Halo is a health tracker that tracks all the pieces with no display screen or haptic suggestions. Should you don’t need to be bugged by notifications, texts, or calls, the Halo is for you. Better of all, with the Tone characteristic off, its battery lasts a full week.
You need an inexpensive health tracker that might preserve getting higher
The Amazon Halo in all fairness reasonably priced for a health tracker – plus, most of its performance is situated in its cellphone app, which the Halo crew would possibly develop with much more options.
You need attention-grabbing monitoring and exercises rolled in a single
The Halo tracks vocal tone and sleep, in addition to health in motion fairly than exercise phrases, making for a extra intriguingly cohesive image of non-public well being and wellness.
Don’t purchase it if…
You desire a fully-functional health smartwatch
This might sound apparent, however the Amazon Halo’s lack of a display screen and haptics means you possibly can’t verify your exercises except you convey up your cellphone and verify the app. If you’d like mid-workout updates in your wearable, look elsewhere.
You desire a wearable with superior monitoring
The Halo screens coronary heart fee and motion, however that’s the place its monitoring ends. If you’d like a few of the extra superior options like blood oxygen measuring, strive the Apple Watch 6 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 3.
You need a good cheaper primary health tracker
Sure, there are extra reasonably priced health trackers which have primary fitness-monitoring capabilities than the Halo’s $99 (round £75 / AU$130) asking value – strive the FitBit Inspire 2, which begins at $60 / £50 / AU$130.
