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Amazon Halo.
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A closer look at the device itself.
Amazon has announced Halo, a combination subscription service, app, and fitness wearable that promises to use some of the same technology that the company developed for Alexa to add a new dimension to tracking personal health – tone of voice.
The product’s promotional copy makes the case that “strong social connections are just as important for long-term health as adequate sleep, being fit, having a good diet, or not even smoking.”
Using machine-learning-driven speech processing, the device records your voice intermittently and analyzes the tempo, rhythm, pitch and intensity to make judgments about “the positivity and energy of your voice” where “positivity is measured by how happy or sad you are loud, and energy is how excited and tired you sound. ”
The app gives you daily summaries of how you sound all day long. Amazon states that access to this information will help you to understand how you sound to others, and to diagnose social issues in your life, such as having fun at night with your family because you are stressed during the day. work.
Create a privacy point, Amazon indicates that the device does not start listening before you sign in, and all samples are processed locally on your phone and deleted when processing is complete.
The device has no screen and does not send frequent notifications. Sensors include an accelerometer, a temperature sensor, a heart rate monitor and two microphones. You can press a particular button to turn the microphones on or off at random. In addition to the distinctive tone function, the band and service follow many of the common suspicions for values of fitness: sleep, activity, and percentage of body fat.
Amazon promises water resistance and battery life for up to seven days.
The Halo band comes in three sizes – small, medium and large – and three colors: winter + silver, blush + rose gold, and black + onyx. The values cost $ 64.99, and it’s currently in “early access” status on the Amazon store, which means you have to request access. Membership is $ 3.99 per month after a 6-month free trial. The app is available on both iOS and Android.
Amazon states in its press release that the above prices are specific to the period of early access, but the company does not say how much it will cost once it leaves early access, as well as when that will happen.
Listing image by Amazon
