Amazon Halo? Any folks here tested it out or planning to do so with a deeper review?
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@sprague gave us a look including some data comparisons at the weekly self-research chat, very interesting. Here’s his write up with comparisons to Apple Watch: https://richardsprague.com/post/2020/12/02/comparing-amazon-halo-to-apple-watch/
Yes, as Gary notes I’ve been using it pretty intensively for the past week. One strength is that it lets you download the raw data, though it comes as a bunch of somewhat inscrutable CSV files that I’m in the process of deciphering. (For example I’m unable to figure out how to it maps from raw heart rate to daily summaries)
The tone thing seems like a gimmick which I’m not sure is very useful. But I’m very impressed by the body scan feature, which if it’s accurate is a worthwhile standalone application all by itself.
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I was able to be an early adopter for the Halo Band. I have almost left it on continuously since I received it (showers and all). I have not used the “Labs” yet, which offer exercise programs, as I have a daily scheduled workout routine, but the sleep score, metrics, and heart rate monitor I refer to daily. My first thing to do upon rising is to see my sleep score.
I do use the tone function, but it only tells me as school teacher, that 20% or more of my day I am annoyed. I would rather have this feature for capturing the tones of others. It would be nice to show someone what the algorithm thinks about how they interacted with you (lift your wrist up for a brighter tone from then on).
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Niles, is there anything that you find especially useful about these measures? What have you learned?
For my sleep, I get to put a number on how I think it went. When I feel that I awoke too many times, or fell asleep past 10p (10-2 being a prime time for me to be sleeping), I know that I didn’t sleep well. My numbers have not gone below “Good”, but that ranges from 70-84 out of 100.
The mood measures have made me actively look for better ways to phrase my lessons, and provide more dynamics in pitch (if I am more singsongy, I get a better rating). Is it making me more charismatic? Possibly. Does that burn more calories? Definitely!
My only fear is that I will be chasing better numbers, like I have towards stepcount for years, that my day will be a nonstop high-octane routine that I will only try to make more complicated. I do this with my workouts already.