Amazon Unveils Early Access Program for Health Monitoring Halo Band

Amazon announced the Halo monitoring service and a wrist-worn wearable this week. The company is taking requests for the Halo Band ($65) at a 35% discount off the $99 regular price in an early access invitation program, an approach similar to the one it took with the launch of the Echo smart speaker. “If selected,” early access subscribers will get six months free of a Halo membership that will automatically renew at $3.99 a month unless canceled. Fitbit’s $329 Sense smartwatch works with the company’s $9.99 app; Fitbit also announced a $99 Inspire 2 tracker Tuesday. Amazon sees body fat percentage (BFP) as a better indicator of health and longevity than weight or body mass index alone; its Amazon Halo health membership has a “Body” feature that uses computer vision and machine learning to measure and track BFP using a smartphone camera and the Halo app, blogged Melissa Cha, vice president-emerging devices and technologies, Wednesday. Amazon says its body composition measurement is nearly twice as accurate as at-home smart scales and is a better value than clinical body fat analyses that average $80 per scan. The band has typical tracking features to monitor activity and sleep, analyze body composition and learn healthy habits. A differentiating feature of Halo is monitoring voice tone, because “strong social connections are just as important to long-term health as adequate sleep, being fit, having a good diet, or even not smoking,” blogged cardiologist Maulik Majmudar, Amazon medical officer, Thursday. Amazon's Tone voice analysis tool is designed to help users understand how they sound to others, “helping improve their communication and relationships.” Amazon gave examples of how one sounds to a partner, child, waiter, boss and interviewer, saying the app can help “maintain relationship health with tone of voice analysis." On privacy, Amazon referenced “multiple layers of protections” to keep data “safe and in your control.” It won’t sell health data “that ties directly to you.” Users can download or delete health data from the app at any time, it said. Amazon worked with 100 “expert developed labs” to test ways users can improve health and behavior using the device. It listed Mayo Clinic, Relax Melodies, American Heart Association, Sweat, Aaptiv, Weight Watchers and sound consultant Julian Treasure as consulting experts.