After the Amazon Halo and Fitbit fiascos, is it time to stop buying connected wearables?
Following news this week that Amazon has decided to shutter its health-focused Halo division, your smart Amazon Halo and Halo View fitness trackers, along with the Halo Rise sleep tracker, will essentially become defunct, with no support or further updates coming from Amazon. An Amazon statement confirmed all devices will stop working in August. Although Amazon will refund any Halo device bought in the last year and unused prepaid Halo subscriptions will be refunded, it’s a kick in the teeth to Halo owners, who are left holding a now-useless plastic bracelet.
This isn’t the first time, even the first time this year, owners of connected wearable devices are getting the raw end of a deal. Fitbit, now in the hands of Google, has also decided to shutter popular features like Group Challenges and music support, leaving customers with devices that do not carry the features they were originally purchased with, and in many cases, were purchased for.
This is a consumer rights issue first and foremost. What Google and Amazon are doing is effectively moving the goalposts: you bought a device based on the fact it came with certain features, and after you bought it, those features have been changed or removed. We’re so pleased when features get retroactively added to our watches during updates, but we often forget those features can be removed remotely as well.
This is not just limited to wearables, but is happening in other smart tech spaces as well: we’ve recently reported on the fact Google appears to be killing off its range of Chromebooks in an act of self-sabotage. Phones, tablets, wearables, laptops, smart home devices – all connected devices could effectively be rendered inert by the manufacturer with a simple flick of a switch, and it’s time we remembered that.
