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

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: 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 (NASDAQ: AAPL), Fitbit (NYSE: FIT) and Garmin (NASDAQ: 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 (NASDAQ: 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.