There are countless smart watches and bands on the market, but aside from tracking your heart rate and reminding you to get up and walk so you can have a better step count, not many truly prioritize health and wellness fully the way the new Halo View and its accompanying Amazon Halo app do.
Widely available Dec. 8 in time for the holidays, the Halo View, unlike the brand’s Halo Band, has a face. The AMOLED color display showcases, at a glance, your activity, your sleep scores, blood oxygen levels, live tracking of your workouts, move notifications and more. It comes in three chic colors, including the Active Black, Lavender Dream and Sage Green. The Halo View is also swim-proof with battery life lasting — get this — up to seven whole days *Toni Braxton voice.*
What’s most enjoyable about the band is that it tracks your workouts in a way that many watches don’t. If you’re not getting steps in while exercising but still working out in an intense way, for example, doing an elliptical or spinning, it’s not uncommon for watches to not recognize your sweat session. The Halo View, though, tracks the intensity of whatever you’re doing so that you can get full credit for your workout.
Other perks? The app that comes with the band, which is a true gem, takes account of your body composition through a scan (done with help of your smartphone camera), measuring body fat and helping you take notice of body changes over time. It also gives you recipes that help with bodily changes (since people always want healthy but delicious ideas of what to eat) based on your tastes, workouts based on the types of classes and instruction you prefer, and in tandem with the band, counts calories based on how much energy you’re using in a day, not just physically. That includes brain activity, breathing and what’s being burned during sleep.
After sitting with this band for nearly a week though, what most intrigued me is the ability to track things outside of what goes in and out of your body. It’s full wellness and energy tracking. For example, it takes not of how you sound when you speak to others and ways to adapt that whether you’re listening to loved ones or doing public speaking. (It also details when you have the highest energy and can analyze your tone for you before you speak with someone.) And Halo has also teamed up with Headspace to help you better cope with stress.
A one-year Halo membership is included with the purchase of a Halo View. It, as mentioned, is filled with a large catalog of resources to help you be your best when it comes to your mind, body, spirit, sleep patterns, activity, nutrition and energy levels. The app will also expand its workout classes through Halo Fitness and help with your daily eating habits with Halo Nutrition.
The Halo View is for sale for $79.99 and with the combination of the product with the app, it’s worth the price in your efforts, or the efforts of a loved one, to live a healthier lifestyle.