New Amazon Halo fitness tracker adds AMOLED screen, ditches the creepy mic

Amazon Halo gets a proper display, extended battery life, a year of Halo Fitness and Nutrition, and a sub-$100 price.

What you need to know

• Amazon Halo View is a new $80 fitness tracker with an AMOLED display, a follow-up to last year's Halo Band.
• It comes with a year's free subscription to Halo Fitness and Halo Nutrition, with "hundreds" of workouts and personalized meal plans and recipes.
• Halo View will help track your heart rate, body fat percentage, posture, sleep, and other health information.
• Halo View sports bands come in 15 colors and will cost $15, while metal, fabric, or leather bands will cost $30.

The Amazon Halo Band stood out as a new kind of fitness tracker, but not always in the best ways. On the plus side, it was extremely comfortable and lightweight; had useful health sensors like an SpO2, ECG, skin temperature, and electrodermal to track your health in-app; and gave you tons of actionable info to improve your health. On the flip side, its mic drained the battery and was always listening to everything you said (for health reasons), and it literally doesn't have a display, so you can't check health data or use apps with a quick glance.

Amazon Halo View is the successor to the Halo Band, and it brings back many of its predecessor's benefits while improving on its flaws. The most obvious upgrade is that it now has an AMOLED display, so you can see your health data without pulling out your phone. And it removes the mic, which means it can't take your calls but may live up to Amazon's promise of a 1-week battery life — which the Halo Band promised but failed to deliver.

Otherwise, the Halo View will gather similar health data as the Halo Band, including your heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and skin temperature.

You've seen the Halo View's form factor before: check out any of the best fitness trackers from Fitbit, Amazfit, or other competitors, and you'll see something similar. According to its newly-updated store page, the Halo View weights 11.4g or 20.6g with a small band, which is very lightweight compared to most rival brands.

It's also water resistant up to 5 ATM, charges to full power in 90 minutes, and can connect to both iPhones and Android phones. And at just $80, it'll undercut all but the cheapest of competing trackers, most of which fall in the low $100s.

Amazon is essentially using the Halo View as a gateway for customers to buy into its new Halo Fitness subscription service. Coming to the Halo app "later this year," Fitness will provide "hundreds of exclusive, studio-quality workouts for all fitness levels" focused on cardio, strength, yoga, outdoor, or mobility, with fitness coaches and celebrities like Halle Berry spurring you on. And if you buy the Halo View, you get a year's free access to Halo Fitness, as well as Halo Nutrition.

The latter service is all about tracking your food habits to get healthier — and, more cynically, acts as a way for Amazon to push you to buy that healthier food from Whole Foods using an Alexa Shopping List. Arriving in 2022, Halo Nutrition will also be complementary for a year. Once your year is up, the Halo subscription will cost $4 per month.

The Halo View band comes in three default colors: Active Black, Sage Green, and Lavender Dream. If those options don't appeal to you, you can buy any one of 15 colored bands separately for $15, or upgrade to a fancier material like leather or fabric for $30.

Get fit with Alexa's help

Amazon Halo View Fitness Tracker

See at Amazon

Still "Coming soon"

You can't buy it yet, but it'll undoubtedly be available for pre-order soon. The Amazon Halo View gives you the total-body health tracking of the Halo Band, but adds a display to give you more immediate access to that health data. Its affordable price could make this a popular competitor to the Fitbit brand, though we still need to test it to see how it performs by comparison.