Amazon.com announced on Wednesday that it will be closing its Halo division, which offers health and sleep tracking devices, as part of the company’s efforts to implement broader layoffs.
The company announced that it will no longer provide support for Halo services after July 31st. If you bought a Halo device in the last 12 months, the company will give you a complete refund.
“We notified impacted employees in the U.S. and Canada today,” the company said in a blog post.
Last year, the company launched the first Halo band. It was not just a fitness tracker but also offered access to some health monitoring and analysis services through Amazon. They have since introduced two more versions – Halo View and Halo Rise. The Halo View is a sleep tracker that does not require physical contact and the Halo Rise is a smart alarm clock.
Amazon has joined the likes of Apple and Google in developing health-monitoring technology for consumers. However, their collection of sensitive information, such as body fat percentage via their fitness wristband, has drawn regulatory scrutiny.
In March, Amazon announced a second round of layoffs, which affected 9,000 workers. On Wednesday, some of these employees were informed about the cuts through emails from the heads of Amazon Web Services and the People Experience and Technology team.
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