Amazon’s Echo Buds are now fitness trackers too

Alexa, show me a business hub towards fitness tracking.

Amazon announced that its Alexa engine Echo Buds will soon benefit from support for monitoring data related to user workouts. in the the coming days, users will be able to prompt the voice assistant with the command “Alexa, start my workout”, and the headphones will start tracking data on calories burned, distance traveled, and pace. According to TechCrunch, the controls also include the ability to tell Alexa to end a workout, pause a walk or run, or reveal the distance you’ve walked or walked and the pace of the workout.

CNBC reported that Echo Buds users can activate the feature from their Alexa app by selecting Create a training profile of Workouts menu under Account settings. Users will then be able to view their Buds data by accessing their devices in the Alexa app, selection of Echo Buds of Echo and Alexa option, and choosing Workouts.

The ability to track fitness data with a pair of headphones that drastically cuts products offered by other fitness-focused tech giants like Apple looks appealing – at the time of this writing, the Echo Buds were downsized. at just $ 80 (vs. $ 130) on Amazon, well below the price of a pair of AirPods or AirPods Pro, for example. This could make Amazon Buds a no-brainer for people who want the benefits of fitness tracking without having to waste hundreds of dollars on a pair.

But Amazon also didn’t say it thought long and hard about this whole pivotal to fitness issue before pulling the trigger on its other fitness products. The company recently debuted Amazon Halo, whose “body composition tool” uses your own smartphone to track your body fat percentage, which a user can then adjust to see what they might look like with more or less body fat on their person. Yikes. It should be noted that the body analysis does not give a complete picture your health, and it certainly shouldn’t be used in place of a conversation with your doctor to determine what is best for your overall health.

The buds appear mostly harmless. But given Amazon’s questionable overall approach to fitness and health, it’s worth considering whether it makes sense to buy into Amazon’s fitness ecosystem or save. for something that, you know, a little less cringe.