Amazon announced it would be closing its Halo division, informing employees in the US and Canada of layoffs and Halo users that the device and app will stop working as of August 1st.
amazon halo is a wrist-worn health tracker with a companion app that uses health metrics intended to give users a comprehensive view of their health and well-being and provide actionable recommendations for improvement.
The technology and retail giant is offering employees affected by the closure transitional health insurance benefits, a severance allowance and support with external job placement.
Customers will receive full refunds for Amazon Halo Band, Amazon Halo View, Amazon Halo Rise, and Amazon Halo accessory band purchases made within the past 12 months. You can also get refunds for unused Halo subscription fees. The company said health data related to the Halo wearables will also be deleted on August 1.
“We continually evaluate the progress and potential of our products to deliver customer value, and regularly make adjustments based on those evaluations. We recently made the difficult decision to no longer support Amazon Halo effective July 31, 2023. We are incredibly proud of the invention and hard work that went into building Halo on behalf of our customers, and our priorities are serving our customers and supporting our employees,” said an Amazon spokesperson Mobile Health News in an email.
THE BIGGER TREND
On Wednesday, Amazon began laying off some employees in the Human Resources and Cloud Computing departments, which were part of previously announced layoffs that are expected to affect 9,000 employees. The company had another round of layoffs last year, affecting more than 18,000 employees.
The company entered the wearable device market in August 2020 with the release of its Halo. Since then, it has added new features to its wearable, including Movement Health and updated its Halo line by adding Halo View in 2021 and Halo Rise in 2022.
Amazon has made several moves into the healthcare space. It closed its $3.9 billion acquisition of primary care provider One Medical in February, shortly after multiple news outlets reported the Federal Trade Commission would not sue to block the deal.
The company bought digital pharmacy PillPack in 2018 and launched Amazon Pharmacy about two years later.
The company also recently announced a Subscription service for some generics that costs a flat fee of $5 per month.
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