Health Wearables Firms Likely to Benefit When Amazon Shutters Halo

In what is likely welcome news to others in the wearables space, Amazon is axing its health-focused Halo unit in a move to refocus its business.

“We recently made the very difficult decision to stop supporting Amazon Halo effective July 31, 2023,” Amazon said in a Thursday (April 26) announcement.

“Beginning on Aug. 1, 2023, Amazon Halo devices, and the Amazon Halo app, will no longer function,” it added.

Halo personal fitness trackers were Amazon’s attempt to capitalize on the connected wearables wave that began with the Garmin Forerunner in 2003 followed by the Fitbit in 2009. The early devices took old-school pedometer step-counters in new directions as sensor tech improved, with later iterations of these devices measuring everything from body mass index to mood.

Apple Watch joined the party in 2015 with features for runners and swimmers to monitor performance. Amazon launched Halo and Halo Band in August 2020, selling a Halo Band with a six-month Halo subscription for $64.99 at the time of initial release.

A lot has changed since the surreal summer of 2020 when the nation and the world were getting accustomed to COVID lockdowns, remote work, and an understandable obsession with personal health kicked into high gear. Amazon expanded the Halo line with several iterations, including the Halo Rise bedside sleep tracker introduced in September 2022.

Competition has grown fierce in health-tracking wearables since 2020, with Apple seen as pulling ahead on the strength of the Apple Watch. The same month that Amazon unveiled the Halo Rise, Apple took the wraps off Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch SE, touting “best-in-class health and safety features like the ECG app and fall detection by introducing temperature-sensing capabilities, retrospective ovulation estimates,” and other features.

In its fiscal first-quarter 2023 earnings call in February for the period ended Dec. 31, 2022, Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors the company’s “installed base of devices in the category set a new all-time record, thanks to the largest number of customers new to a smartwatch that we have ever had in a given quarter,” adding that “nearly two-thirds of customers purchasing an Apple Watch during the quarter were new to the product.”

This was despite the fact, that as Cook also noted, “Wearables, Home and Accessories [revenue] was $13.5 billion, which was down 8% year over year.”

Health-tracking wearables are not unpopular by any means.

“More than 60% of millennials and Generation Z consumers used connected, wearable technology at least once per month, with more than one-quarter wearing their devices every single day,” according to PYMNTS’ study “The ConnectedEconomy™ Monthly Report: The Evolving Digital Daily Edition,” based on surveys of over 4,000 U.S. consumers.

The Amazon news suggests that most of that activity involves devices other than Halo.

As to the fate of millions of Halo devices and subscriptions active today, Amazon’s announcement said: “In the coming weeks, Amazon will fully refund purchase(s) made in the preceding 12 months of Amazon Halo View, Amazon Halo Band, Amazon Halo Rise, and Amazon Halo accessory bands. In addition, any unused prepaid Halo subscriptions fees will be refunded to your original payment method. If you have a paid subscription, as of today you will no longer be charged the monthly subscription fee.”

Amazon’s bigger move into retail healthcare with the acquisition of One Medical is unaffected by sunsetting Halo, however, the personal medical data collected by health-tracking wearables and stationary devices like Halo Rise could be useful to consumers using One Medical clinics, leaving open the possibility that Amazon’s health-tracking innovations may have a second life.

As for now, the company said: “If you want to download or delete your Halo health data, you can do so from the Settings page in the app… Remaining Halo health data will be deleted after Aug. 1, 2023.”