Amazon’s new fitness tracker listens to your voice to figure out your mood

Tuesday, September 1, 2020 - 13:40 in Mathematics & Economics

The $99 Halo wearable will track a variety of health and fitness variables. (Amazon /)Modern fitness trackers often try to set themselves apart by adding more advanced hardware and sensors inside. Now, many high-end trackers and smart watches include ECG devices for tracking heart rhythms—one company, Withings, even promises sleep apnea detection in its upcoming wearable.Amazon, however, has decided to set its new fitness device apart from the rest by relying heavily on AI algorithms and listening to your voice. The $99 device is called Halo and it has a heart rate monitor inside, as well as an accelerometer, temperature sensor, and no screen all. It tracks the typical fitness stuff you’d expect like steps and pulse trends. But, It also has a pair of microphones, which are important for the device’s most interesting—and so far, controversial—feature, called Tone.When you first set up Halo, it asks you to read a...

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