Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on TechRadar.
Amazon is done with the Halo health brand and every product associated with it, TechRadar has confirmed.
If you were looking forward to a summer with your Halo band, Halo Rise lamp, or Halo View, you can forget about it. Amazon announced in a blog post on Wednesday (April 26, 2023), that it would end support for all Halo devices on July 31, 2023. A month later, your Halo app will stop working and the devices connected to it, yes, the bands and that funky light, will stop functioning and become worthless pieces of plastic and metal. Amazon is helpfully recommending you recycle them.
In a statement shared with TechRadar, Amazon wrote:
“We continually evaluate the progress and potential of our products to deliver customer value, and we regularly make adjustments based on those assessments. 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.”
It’s an ignominious end for Amazon’s short-lived brand and the Halo Band that launched during the pandemic. Amazon could be credited for doing things differently. Instead of a screen, the band and app focused on things like Body Tone and overall fitness. Plus, the band’s ability to track and report on your tone of voice certainly generated a bit of a buzz.
Here’s how our original review described it:
The Amazon Halo is a neat, minimalist fitness tracker without a screen. All the info goes straight to the phone app, which has extra optional features, like monitoring your vocal tone and tracking your body fat percentage. It’s not too pricey, but requires a subscription service to use more than basic tracking – and despite getting six months free with purchase, we’re left wondering about the long-term value of the device.
The last line was nothing if not prescient.
A year after launching the original Halo Band, Amazon introduced the Halo View, which cost a bit more but added a small AMOLED screen. Late last year, the Amazon sub-brand added the sleep-focused Halo Rise lamp, an illuminator with a light source that looked like a giant on switch (even though it was tracking when you turned on your biological off – or sleep – switch).
As of this writing, all of these products have disappeared from Amazon’s website. You could still buy accessory bands for the Halo band, but what would be the point?
Amazon, by the way, is ready to refund all Halo purchases made in the last 12 months. It’ll also return unused subscription fees (many of Halo Band’s core features were only available via subscription).
While Amazon isn’t saying so, the shuttering of the Halo brand is likely connected to the waves of layoffs at the tech giant. That doesn’t lessen the pain though for people who invested in the brand and have their fitness tracking and wellness regimen tied to the Halo product.
It’s also a little embarrassing for Halo partners like US-based fitness club Planet Fitness, which is currently offering free Halo bands if you sign up today. Someone should probably tell them.
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