Amazon has announced a new feature for its Halo fitness tracking system: Alexa integration. With this new feature, Halo owners will be able to request Alexa devices for various health statistics, such as their sleep score or activity points obtained during the day. The integration is down by default and owners need the latest firmware on their Halo tapes and the latest version of the iOS or Android app to activate it. Amazon says the launch of features starts today, March 4th, and will continue next week or so.
The Halo Band is Amazon’s first fitness-focused product and has had a less-than-good reception since it was announced last fall. Aside from the standard fitness aspects to track your movement and sleep patterns, the $ 99.99 Halo also has the ability to police the tone of your voice and tell you when you ‘re dismissive or condescending with your words. The companion Halo app also has a feature to scan your body through the camera of your phone 3D and measure your fat composition. These two unconventional features have been criticized by critics in publications such as The New York Times and Washington Post (actually owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos) for their intrusiveness and contradiction.
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Oddly enough, although the Halo has been on sale since mid-December (it was only launched with a limited invitation), it is not currently available in all sizes and colors on Amazon, with no information on when it may return. I asked Amazon about this and the company declined to comment, although other retailers like Best Buy have enough stock. At the time of writing, the Halo has a 3.7-star rating from Amazon customers, compared to the 4.6-star rating that Fitbit Inspire 2 has the same size and price.
Amazon notes that the Alexa integration only allows Alexa to provide information regarding health data captured by the Halo – Alexa will not be able to do the tone analysis itself. It will also not save the Halo data as part of the answers. There is an option to set a voice PIN to protect access to the Halo data, and you will be able to select a five-minute time-out window after entering the PIN for easier access to the Halo data in subsequent requests.
Although the Halo integration works with all Alexa-enabled devices, including smart screens, it has no special optimization for those who have screens. If you want to see any charts or graphs of your fitness data, you need to go to the Halo Smartphone app.
Amazon says Halo owners will be able to disable the integration of the Halo app at any time if they decide they no longer want it, and they can manage and remove voice recordings of their Halo requests in the Alexa app’s privacy center .