Amazon enters health wearables market with Halo wristband

Amazon on Thursday unveiled its first wearables product: a wristband for health and fitness tracking along with a subscription service and smartphone app.

The Halo Band includes several new features not seen on other fitness tracking devices, like the ability to track wearer’s emotional state by listening to changes in tone and to create a 3D rendering of their bodies.

The band is set to cost $99.99 while the the subscription service will cost $3.99 a month.

The band and 6 months of free membership is currently available for an early special access price of $64.99.

While this is Amazon’s first foray into wearables, the company has been making moves into the health care space for years.

The e-commerce giant purchased online pharmacy service PillPack in 2019. It also launched a health care project along with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan.

The Halo Band will likely end up competing directly with the Apple Watch and Fitbit’s devices. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced a deal to acquire Fitbit last year, but is still awaiting regulatory approval.

Amazon stressed a commitment to privacy in Thursday’s launch announcement, but concerns are likely to remain.

Health data collected by the device will be encrypted during transit and while on the cloud, the company said.

Users will also have the ability to access and delete data collected about them at any time.