Amazon shutting down Halo division as part of wider layoffs

Amazon announced that it is shutting down its Halo division that sells health and sleep trackers on Wednesday. This decision comes as the technology giant kicks off wider company layoffs. The company has stated that it will stop supporting Halo services from July 31st, and will fully refund Halo device purchases made in the preceding 12 months.

According to a blog post by Amazon, the company has notified impacted employees in the US and Canada. The post did not specify how many employees will be affected by the closure of the Halo division.

The Halo division was launched in 2020 with the introduction of the original Halo band. Initially, the Halo division introduced the Halo band, which served as a fitness tracker and also provided customers with access to specific health monitoring and analysis services offered by Amazon. Later on, the division released two additional products - Halo View and Halo Rise. The former is a contactless sleep tracker, while the latter is a smart alarm clock.

Like its peers, Apple, Alphabet’s Google, and Amazon have invested in health-tracking technology for consumers. On some occasions, Amazon's collection of sensitive information through its fitness wristband, such as body fat percentage, has drawn regulatory scrutiny.

Amazon declared its second retrenchment drive in March, in which it disclosed the layoff of 9,000 employees. As a part of this, on Wednesday, the company informed impacted staff about the cuts via email from the heads of Amazon Web Services and the People Experience and Technology team.

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