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Hands-on: Amazon Halo View – best smartwatch under $100?

The Amazon Halo View is one of the newest and most affordable smartwatches currently available. With fitness tracking, 3D bodyfat analysis, fitness programs, and various other features included, could this be the best new wearable under $100?

The Halo View is Amazon’s new alternative to the previous Halo. The primary difference between the two is that the Amazon Halo View has a color touch display where there is none on the original version. 

Coming in at $80, the Halo View comes in 3 colors: Sage Green, Active Black, and Lavender Dream. Most of my current watches and wearables are already black so I went with Sage Green to mix things up.

The Amazon Halo View comes with a free 1-year membership, and afterward, it costs $3.99 USD per month. Given all the features that come with the membership, this seems like a very good deal.

The membership includes hundreds of classes that can be taken on your phone or cast to your TV. These classes were developed with partnerships with various fitness companies like OpenFit and Orange Theory. It is sort of like Apple Fitness+, but for even a lower cost and with a wider variety of bodyweight and weight training programs to follow.

There is a movement assessment that uses the camera on your phone to analyze your mobility and stability in various areas. Then, based on your results it gives you a list of suggested mobility sessions (taught by Dr. Kelly Starrett who we interviewed last month), with the goal of retesting every few weeks to assess improvements.

There is also a body analysis that uses the camera on your phone to generate a 3D modal of you and estimate your current body fat percentage. This looks really cool and I’m interested in seeing visually how my body changes over time. Be careful with this though, as from my testing so far, it seems like the body fat percentage is extremely inaccurate. My guess is that it utilizes your BMI to estimate your body fat much more so than image analysis.

There is also a very unique voice coaching section which I really want to check out more. This includes programs to improve public speaking, and it even analyzes the tone of your voice auto let you know if you sounded excited, low energy, or even condensing!

Additionally, the Amazon Halo View can take your blood oxygen level, track your workouts, steps, and provide what seems to be a fairly accurate seep analysis. There are also hundreds of meditation and yoga classes, as well as great-looking recipes to dig through.

Based on my first few weeks with the Amazon Halo View, it seems like a very nice package for this low of a price. It’s not as data-intensive as, for example, the WHOOP, so it may not be the best smartwatch for hardcore fitness enthusiasts. For the average person looking for an affordable wearable that can track their heart rate, sleep, and keep them motivated with a large selection of classes, this seems like it could be a great choice.

Buy Amazon Halo View here.

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Author

Avatar for Colin Jenkins Colin Jenkins

Colin lives in Ventura, CA where he runs a Strength & Conditioning facility. If you have suggestions for fitness tech that you’d like to see covered or reviewed, feel free to send info over to colin@9to5mac.com