Amazon’s Astro robot was certainly the most eye-catching announcement from its hardware event last night. However, the ecommerce giant also launched a new version of its Halo fitness band, along with health-related services, including workout and nutrition guidance.
The new $80 Halo View has an AMOLED screen to display time, notifications, and fitness stats. While that’s the biggest upgrade from last year’s screen-less Halo band, Amazon has also dropped the always-listening mic.
This means you can’t use the weird-as-hell emotion detecting feature directly from the band, but it still lives in the app.
The company says the new band has a seven-day battery life, and you can fully charge it in 90 minutes.
Amazon is also launching a Halo Fitness service, which will be free for a year if you buy the new Halo View, and will cost $4/month after that. The service will offer Amazon’s body composition scanning, activity points system, sleep analysis, and Alexa integration. By the end of this year, the firm is also introducing guided workout videos for categories such as cardio, yoga, strength, and conditioning.
In 2022, the service will launch nutrition content, such as meal planning guides and recipes, from companies like Weight Watchers, Lifesum, and Amazon-owned Whole Foods.
This whole package is Amazon’s challenge to Fitbit Premium ($10/month), which offers exclusive workouts, mindfulness sessions, sleep score breakdown, and blood glucose trends. The ecommerce giant’s offering is also cheaper than Apple Fitness+ ($10/month), which just has workout videos and guided mediation at the moment.
Amazon’s Halo View band will cost $80 and will ship in time for the holidays.
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