Amazon has decided to stop supporting Amazon Halo after July 31, 2023. It already pulled all three Halo products from their website and plans to lay off a portion of the Halo employees. Melissa Cha, Amazon"s VP of smart home and health wrote the announcement in an email sent to staff. This comes after less than three years of the launch of Amazon Halo, an AI-powered health and wellness-centric service.
Amazon announced its Halo line of products and services in August 2020 with the Halo Band. They utilized computer vision technology and AI to give users accurate measurements of vitals, including body fat percentage. Later it released another unique product, the Halo Rise. It was a contactless solution to track sleep. This product was launched only a few months ago, back in November 2022.
Cha wrote all three Halo hardware products, namely Halo Band, Halo View, and Halo Rise will be phased out of operations over the next several months. The products are already removed from Amazon"s site. Amazon announced, "We are fully refunding customer purchases made in the preceding 12 months".
It will also refund any unused prepaid Halo subscription fees. The original payment method will be used for these refunds. These Halo devices will stop functioning and all remaining health data will be deleted after August 1, 2023. Existing customers will not be charged the monthly subscription fee. No additional steps are required by users in this matter.
It has already notified employees in the U.S. and Canada about the decision. It will be offering separation payments, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support to impacted employees. You can learn more about the notice here.