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Halo has two unique functionalities not present on the Apple Watch. The first of these is use of a user's phone camera via the Halo app for full-body 3D scans to determine body fat percentage. The second is the ability to listen for emotion in a user's voice and track mood.

Imagine your emotion when hackers download 3D scans of your naked body.
 
They could have made it look like a million things - but decided to copy the Nike bands - both the sport and sport loop completely? Damn Alexa ! Shame on you!
 
I would read the terms very carefully. I would want to know what they are doing with the data before purchasing anything.
 
I was just thinking about this very idea. I’m glad to see it come to market. Being faceless not only make them last longer and less expensive, but is less in-your-face ”fashion statement” if you are only interested in tracking your health metrics. I would imagine there could be versions than you can pair for certain things like one on each ankle to track addition things like your speed and efficiency if you’re an athlete
And rather than completely faceless, why not use the real estate to place a nice simple round analog watch on top of it to get further function out of it. I would Imagine that without a display they could get the battery to last pretty long. And an analog face wouldn’t need any juice to last quite a while.
 
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Apple: Start your photocopiers PLEASE. I do not want an Apple Watch (still loving my Casio Digital). I would love to have the health measuring components of the AW along with the longer battery life. Also, the ability to deliver health monitoring at what will hopefully be a much lower price vs. the AW has real meaning to society. So PLEASE copy this - but better of course.

this doesn’t fix the price issue, but have you thought about getting an Apple Watch and just turning off the screen? You’ll get killer battery life...
 
This is interesting... not for me, but interesting. I have a Garmin Vivofit 3 that I wear that (at the time I bought it) was one of the most low profile activity trackers I could find. My dream device would be something that is built into a watch band that can be added to a normal analog watch, soo I can get fitness data, but also wear a normal watch (which I prefer). I found a kickstarter "solution" years ago, but it failed miserably for me in practice.
 
Having owned a number of fitness monitoring devices (including multiple FitBits, some off-brand stuff, a Garmin, and now an Apple Watch S5) here’s my recommendation: either buy something DIRT cheap that does one or two things well, or save up a bit longer and get an AW. I’ve seen Series 3 on sale for sometimes as low as $180...

If you just want a step tracker or HR monitor, get something that does that and literally nothing else. Otherwise, the Apple Watch is *BY FAR* the best in class product, and everything else in the middle does a lot of stuff but not very well.

And not to mention: do you really trust your health and fitness data to Amazon?
 
So... a wristband that listens to you all the time, processes those recordings in the Amazon Cloud, and also encourages you to take photos of yourself so many more health related gadgets or services can be sold to you.

Jeez...

Hard pass. Don't need Amazon collecting more data on me in order to sell to advertisers.

Amazon stressed that it won't be doing all that.

Per https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/27/amazon-hal-wearable-tracks-activity-body-fat-emotions.html

The company has stressed its commitment to privacy with this new device and committed that it won’t use the insights to sell health-related products to its users.

Furthermore...

Amazon says none of the voice-based snippets are stored in the cloud and they’re automatically deleted once they’re processed. The company also said it won’t use the voice recordings for targeted advertising.

As for the 3D body scan...

Amazon stressed that the data can be deleted anytime and the images are automatically deleted from the cloud after they’re processed. But those who want to store their body scan images in Amazon Cloud can opt in to do so.
 
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Why does Amazon think it needs to sell a device like this? I get Echo to push Alexa in the home but what does this do for Amazon?

This is why:

It also ties in with Amazon’s broader efforts to capture a part of the $3.5 trillion health care sector. Five years ago, Amazon had no presence in the market. Since then, it’s added a team working on virtual health care offerings, known as Amazon Care, and joined Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan in an effort to transform employer health care. It has a health and wellness team under Alexa, its voice assistant, as well as a group focused on Covid-19. There’s also a secretive research and development “moonshot” team known as Grand Challenge, and a pharmacy-delivery group under PillPack.
All of these teams could be pulled together into a health solution spanning devices, software and services.
 
In what way is this competing with the Apple Watch?

I don’t think it is competing. I would think it’s competing with Nokia, Fitbit, Garmin etc.

This very general ven-diagram could miss a lot of nuance but here is how I see it.

very-quick-and-dirty-fitness-tracker-personas.PNG
 
Makes sense as a sensory extension to phone so it doesn't need a screen to keep cost affordable with long battery life. Plus, looking at data on a larger phone screen is a better experience than on a tiny watch size one. Ideal timing, too, with a lot of people still on lockdown and needing encouragement to be active.
 
Apple: Start your photocopiers PLEASE. I do not want an Apple Watch (still loving my Casio Digital). I would love to have the health measuring components of the AW along with the longer battery life. Also, the ability to deliver health monitoring at what will hopefully be a much lower price vs. the AW has real meaning to society. So PLEASE copy this - but better of course.

Actually, I think there is a market here for Apple. The Amazon product reminds me of Microsoft's Band which was discontinued a few years ago, but just a lot slimmer in size and lighter in weight. I would say if they can provide most (if not all) of the health features of an Apple Watch, synced to Apple Health with no subscription fees, with long battery life and interchangeable watchbands, for around $150, people would be interested in it. Especially for those who just want to keep track of their general health, and are not athletes. Elder people may go for it.
 
Another Amazon Fire Phone. Probably suffer the same fate as well.

Maybe. But if you don't try, you'll never succeed.

You're suppose to learn from your mistakes and failures.

Bezos didn't become the richest person by second guessing himself and wonder if something would be successful or not.
 
Hopefully people can now fully see that the likes of FB and Amazon want you as a product and that means your data, so by offering a cheap product they then get to harvest your data. I'm sure this new product will meet some needs but its interesting to see the way some big tech companies are going. I totally get why an AW is not for everyone.

Of course the trade-off with Apple is you get hooked into their ecosystem via their products and might have to pay a higher entry/update cost.....but to be honest I am beginning to be fine with that when they protect your privacy more. Things like the iOS 14 options to hide your ID ref AdData is a great opposite example to FB and Amazon but the 30% App store costs need review.
 
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Lost me at no integration with Apple Health, or other health apps for that matter. Want a fitness which doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, and not from China. I might as well dip my fingers in the Chinese cookie jar and Mi Band 5.
 
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