Amazon's Halo Needs Strong Monitoring to Counter Lack of Direct Interaction: Gartner
As a monitor without a direct response mechanism, Amazon’s Halo “better be good at monitoring,” Gartner analyst Ranjit Atwal emailed. The Halo Band and service, announced Thursday (see 2008270007), “might be the ideal device in a COVID-19 environment for health…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
and fitness monitoring at a relatively low cost,” said the analyst, but “not having a stand-alone device but dependent on the smartphone is problematic.” A personal health gadget is “interesting,” with people reluctant during the COVID-19 pandemic to go to gyms or other indoor locations. On the competitive $3.99 monthly fee, Atwal said quality of the apps used will determine the value; the service plan is “basically the cost of one good app a month.” On the impact Amazon’s device and service will have on Fitbit and others in health and wellness space, he cited the growing market due to health concerns. Amazon brings “another option" with a known brand, “although using a version of Alexa might have worked better.” He sees the tech giant eventually bringing out a full line of devices, including smartwatches, but said Amazon wants to start “at mass market.” Gartner predicts $52 billion will be spent on wearables this year.