Amazon Looks To Challenge Fitbit, Apple With New Health-Focused Products

Amazon wants to challenge Apple and Fitbit's dominance of the health products market, and they made this clear during their most recent reveal event.

Aside from the announcement of their robot "assistant" Astro, Amazon also launched an updated version of their Halo fitness band, alongside other health-related products and services such as nutrition and workout guides, TheNextWeb reported.

The updated Halo View band, which will cost $80, features an AMOLED screen where it displays fitness stats, time, and notifications.

Since last year's Halo didn't even feature a screen, this is already a huge upgrade.

But of course, that's not the only thing that's new about the Amazon fitness band.

It also features an "always listening" microphone, as well as a seven-day battery life, which can be fully charged in an hour and a half.

Next up is the new Amazon Halo Fitness service, which is planned to be the direct competitor to Apple Fitness Plus. It is designed to offer subscribers curated video workouts from the world's top trainers.

Lastly, there's Halo Nutrition, which CNET reports aims to help users eat better and get the most out of their fitness routines. However, Amazon has confirmed that this service won't be launched until January of next year.

Amazon has been trying to get into the tech healthcare space since early this year. Back then, they launched an Alexa-integrated tracker during CES 2021, which, according to the retail giant, can detect any physiological abnormality in under a minute.

Amazon Health Services: How Does It Compare?

There's not a lot of fine details about these new health-focused services and products from Amazon. But it could be possible to get a sense of how it compares by looking at one of its most direct competitors.

Fitbit has added several new features to its health tracking ecosystem recently, for instance.

Any Fitbit watch can now let users know if they're snoring too loudly when they sleep, via the "Snore and Noise Detect" function.

This feature uses a built-in microphone (which is found on the Sense or Versa 3) to listen in on the user's snoring, taking note of its noise level. Tracking how loudly you might snore can actually help you understand why you don't feel rested when you wake up, or why people who sleep close to you can't get enough sleep on their own.

Aside from this, Fitbit has also added a Readiness score that lets people know if they're good enough to continue their workouts.

The Amazon offerings, on the other hand, might as well have features of the same caliber, but there's not much detail about them.

But perhaps the biggest thing here is price: Fitbit Premium costs $10 a month, while the competing Amazon service only costs $4 a month.

Not to mention, it also comes with a free full year's subscription to Halo for first-time users.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by RJ Pierce