Amazon Takes On Apple, Fitbit And Garmin With New Halo Fitness Band

Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN announced this week the Amazon Halo, a wearable fitness and health device. The screenless device is a low-cost entry in the crowded smartwatch and tracker field.

What Investors Should Know: The launch of the Halo puts Amazon in competition with other wearable and smartwatch companies like Apple AAPL, Fitbit FIT and Garmin GRMN.

The Amazon Halo is available for pre-order for $64.99, a savings from the eventual $99.99 price point. This price includes six months of a monthly Halo membership. The membership will auto-renew at a price of $3.99 per month.

Halo will assign a point system based on activities rather than just listing steps and calories burned, with input from the American Heart Association. The Amazon Halo will be the first to offer a tone feature, detecting mood and attitude through two microphones. The Halo can also calculate body fat percentage.

Why It’s Important: Fitbit announced a new smartwatch Wednesday that is the first to offer stress testing.

The crowded tracker and smartwatch field continues to see a battle for first to market for each feature. The Halo will be more of a threat to Fitbit and Garmin’s low-cost trackers. Amazon will be looking to appeal to new customers for fitness and health trackers and its large Prime membership base.

A partnership with Weight Watchers WW gives customers the chance to link their accounts. Activity on the Halo translates to FitPoints through Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers, which has five million members, will run a promotional offer for users to get a free Halo.

What's Next: The Amazon Halo is available to pre-order. The Fitbit Sense releases in September.