Amazon has decided to stop supporting Amazon Hello after July 31, 2023. It has already pulled all three Halo products from its website and plans to lay off a portion of Halo’s employees. Melissa Cha, Amazon’s VP of smart home and health, made the announcement in an email to staff. This comes less than three years after Amazon launched Hello, an AI-powered health and wellness service.
Amazon announced its Halo line of products and services with the Halo Band in August 2020. They used computer vision technology and AI to provide users with accurate measurements of important things, including body fat percentage. Later it released another unique product, Hello Rise. It was a contactless solution to track sleep. This product was launched just a few months ago in November 2022.
Cha wrote all three Halo hardware products, namely the Halo Band, the Halo Wave, and the Halo Rise, will be phased out over the next several months. The product has already been removed from Amazon’s site. “We are fully refunding purchases made by customers in the last 12 months,” Amazon announced.
It will also refund any unused prepaid Halo subscription fees. The original payment method will be used for these refunds. These Halo devices will cease to function and all remaining health data will be deleted after August 1, 2023. Existing users will not be charged monthly subscription fees. In this case, users do not need any additional steps.
It has already notified employees in the US and Canada about the decision. It will provide affected employees with severance pay, interim health insurance benefits, and assistance in locating outside employment. Learn more about you. Notes here.
