Amazon no longer sells the Halo Band, Halo View, or Halo Rise. According to source, Amazon has chosen to close its health-focused Halo division. Amazon has discontinued sales of its three Halo devices and intends to lay off a chunk of the Halo crew.
“We have made the difficult decision to wind down the Halo program, which will result in role reductions,” Melissa Cha, Amazon’s VP of smart home and health, told staffers in an email obtained by The Verge.
“More recently, Halo has faced significant headwinds, including an increasingly crowded segment and an uncertain economic environment. Although our customers love many aspects of Halo, we must prioritize resources and maximize benefits to customers and the long-term health of the business.”
Cha went on to say that all Halo hardware would be phased out over the following few months, with activities winding down gradually.
Amazon Halo
The Halo View was available early this month, according to the Wayback Machine, while the Band and Rise were also available last week.
However, the Band, View, and Rise appear to have been removed from Amazon’s site, while they are still accessible at some third-party vendors as of this writing.
“We continually evaluate the progress and potential of our products to deliver customer value, and we regularly make adjustments based on those assessments,” Amazon spokesperson Kristy Schmidt told The Verge in an email.
“We recently made the difficult decision to stop supporting Amazon Halo effective July 31, 2023. We are incredibly proud of the invention and hard work that went into building Halo on behalf of our customers, and our priorities are taking care of our customers and supporting our employees.”
Other Halo products
The news comes as no surprise. Amazon not only began another round of layoffs today, but the corporation was also extremely late to the fitness tracker industry. The initial Halo Band was a simple tracker that debuted in 2020.
Competitors such as Fitbit, Apple, and Samsung had all integrated EKG and atrial fibrillation functions to their smartwatches at the time.
While the basic Band was inexpensive, it was also rather contentious. Its two standout features were the ability to build a 3D image of a user in order to quantify body fat and monitor a person’s tone when speaking to others.
In 2021, it released the Halo View, and it recently released the Halo Rise, a contactless sleep tracker and smart alarm clock.
Amazon has recently stated on a blog that it will completely reimburse any customers who purchased a Halo gadget or accessories band within the last 12 months.
All prepaid Halo subscription costs that have not been utilised will be reimbursed, and users will no longer be charged.
Amazon also stated that the devices will be turned off on August 1st, and any leftover data will be destroyed. Users can also download or delete their data before then via the Halo app’s Settings tab.
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