Amazon's Halo Band requires you to strip naked and wear a microphone so it can take 3D scans of your body fat and track your voice tone. Of course, even though it does all of that, it's still not very useful.
Amazon has a new health-tracking bracelet with a microphone and an app that tells you everything that's going wrong with your health.
You haven't been exercising or sleeping enough, the $65 Halo Band on Amazon says. Your body has too much fat, it says, and the Halo app displays a 3D rendering of your nearly naked body.
And yet: Your voice pitch is "excessive" or "high," says Halo, after listening to you from its small microphone on your wrist.
The Halo collects the most information we've ever seen from a consumer health gadget — and it really doesn't use it much at all. This wearable is much better at helping Amazon collect data than it is at helping you get healthy and happy.
Since August, Halo has been listed by Amazon as an “early access” product that requires an “invitation” to purchase. (It will cost $100 plus a $4 monthly fee once it goes on general sale.)
The fabric-covered Halo has no screen, no sounds or vibrations , and no innovative design. Like its competitors, it contains sensors that track your physical activity, heart rate, sleep, and temperature . The accompanying app is the only place you can see the information it has gathered about your health.
But Halo is entering uncharted territory, collecting some kinds of very personal information – including body photos and audio recordings – and then feeding it into Amazon's software for analysis.
AI-powered devices like Halo may be the future of healthcare. But they're not the present.
Source of information: washingtonpost.com
