Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

March 25, 2023 The strap frequently detached from the device at the tab on the top of the Halo View face over the last months. Today the tab broke. That’s with less than one year of use. Currently repaired with Bondic (UV light). I’ll see if it holds. Good news is that there are 3rd party straps available that don’t depend on the tabs to hold the device in place. Otherwise, still liking the Halo View (HV) a lot. Still feel it is worth having. I got a new phone last week and managed to pair the HV with it almost seamlessly. I lost a night and a few daylight hours of info. It took 3 attempts before the app accepted my profile info (age, gender, weight etc.) so be prepared for this possibility if you have to set it up on a new phone. Jan 2023 I'm glad to report that a few weeks after I wrote the review in Oct. 2022, the Halo view went through an update process and since then, it has worked better than ever. After writing my review in October, I found others were having the same problem via the Amazon Forum which made me feel that whatever was happening, was most likely a tech glitch. Since that update, I haven't had problems at all. The app and Halo View now sync promptly enough. There is little delay. I have access again to workouts, meditation, and all the rest. Do I recommend the Halo View? yes. Once you understand Halo's point system, it is a good system through which to get varied at-home workouts, as well as other health-improving programs like meditation, WW, recipes, etc. The Oct 2022 review below has a lot of details on that as well as the pros and cons as I experience them. I won't repeat them here. I do feel that to get the best use, you probably need to sign up for membership, currently at $3.99 per month. When I bought the device, it included a year's membership so if you can get that deal at some stage, it is certainly worth it. The only other continuing issue is that the strap does on occasion detach from one side of the Halo View. I've been lucky to notice it as it happened or shortly thereafter, and haven't lost the device. It has detached while traveling and in the house. Mostly, I think the issue is that I brush against something or while traveling, it had to do with putting on or off a backpack or lifting a bag or removing jackets, etc. at security. So BEWARE. It sometimes doesn't take much to have the strap detach. Otherwise, I'm pleased with the Halo View. I'm upping my stars to 4/5. _________________________________________________________________________________ This is my second time trying the Halo View. I will leave my first review below. I am upping my score to 3.5 stars. If I had written it a month ago, I’d probably have given it more stars but the last few weeks have been frustrating. I am happy I bought the Halo view rather than the original Halo as I can at least access data via the Halo View device itself rather than having to rely on the app. The Halo App is the biggest issue with the Amazon Halo system (for me at least). It doesn’t sync well with the Halo View device. It is slow to load in the content from Amazon’s own system. It has to load in fresh every time you open the app. Most days it takes 5-15 mins for the data to update. Over the last 3 weeks, that time has extended to 1/2 hour to never. I’m hoping that this is a temporary situation and will soon resolve but who knows? I hope it is a tech issue, that some update to IOS15 or to Halo itself is the cause that the tech guys are working on it but as of now, the Halo app no longer works for me. I have restarted the device, reset the device to factory settings; restarted the phone, deleted and reinstalled the app; re-paired the halo device to the app, etc. etc. numerous times. It syncs quickly when I do that for a brief time. I did it this morning and now, again, a few hours later, nothing syncs. I did the whole factory reset and sync again, lost all my data for today. Previously, the other times when I reset to factory settings, I didn’t lose data. It has felt like an annoyance to have to do the reset but the data was always available. Today I did lose data. 3 nights of sleep scores and 2 days of points were not saved. Since I knew my activity points, I was able to add them back through adding activities while the app worked this morning and again this afternoon when I once more had to go through the whole factory reset and sync to get anything to work. Last week, the app couldn’t give me more in-depth data because it said I hadn’t logged in to the App 4 days of each of the 2 previous weeks. Well, la-di-da! The App doesn’t load in. Doesn’t download all the stuff amazon thinks we need to see in the feed and doesn’t sync with the Halo View. Believe me, it was not from a lack of trying that I didn’t log in. But this is information that I didn’t have before. There is a minimum login requirement in order for the App to give you certain in-depth stats. The fact that the app is so finicky and basically no longer works, means that the in-depth details are not available. Also, since the app just doesn’t load in so the advantage of having all the workouts etc. has been nullified as I cannot access them anymore. I’d even be ok if it was just the syncing that was iffy if I could still do workouts, see the feed or the discovery section or if I could access my saved workouts. But I can’t. As my previous review mentioned, I think it is one of the failings of the Amazon Halo system that the Halo app is only a phone app and workouts, etc. are only available through it. To view anything on a larger screen, you have to cast which is finicky and temperamental. It doesn’t always work. Sometimes there’s video and no sound. Sometimes it just doesn’t work at all… lots of issues which is the nature of casting. I actually bought the various cables and dongles to physically attach the phone to the TVs etc. Of course, that only works when the app works which over the last few weeks has been a rare event! ***************************************************** Back to the Halo View Device itself. My first experience in November-December 2021 found that the device simply did not work. It did not regularly track movement and steps. That review is below. Now I believe the issue may have been that the strap was too loose. Of course, it is also possible that I had a dud device...! I bought a Halo View with the smaller size band this time around and it works well. Mostly tracks everything. Don't take Amazon's advice to purchase the larger size "if you are between sizes"...whatever that means. My interpretation last November meant I bought the larger band size, as my wrist measurement was at the upper measure of the small band and the lower measure of the large band. Hence "between." But I think if you are female, most likely the small/medium band is better. I was between holes 3-4 on the small band when I got it. I had been on the last hole (shortest length) of the large band and it still was loose. I like the size of the device. It is a neat, unobtrusive band. The strap has also worked well most of the time. Yes, it takes a little getting used to its way of closing. You do need some finger dexterity. I have also noticed a few times that it detaches on one side from the Halo View. Thankfully, that has only happened in the house. So I have a question about how long I will have this device, if it ever detaches outside when jogging or elsewhere. Also, the charger is a special, unique charger. It means that I now need to carry yet another charging device when I travel. It is a pity as others noted that Amazon chose this method instead of a wireless charger or something that is more readily available. The Halo View allows the user to view activity (under Data function), which includes steps, calories, daily points, and weekly points. Halo award points based on the intensity of movement. Intense movement gains 2 pts per minute. Moderate activity gains 1 per minute and light activity gains 1 point per 20 minutes. It calculates intensity based on heart rate, taking into account gender and age, which you set through the app. The data function also gives access to heart rate, blood oxygen, and Sleep. The sleep system is ok. It is another point-based system. It tracks how long you take to fall asleep; how many disturbances you have during the night, how much REM, light sleep, deep sleep, etc., and awards points based on that. The Halo View also allows you to select exercise types when you are exercising. If you are able to use the app and can access the workouts there, the information automatically is recorded. So if you do a yoga class or a cardio class via the app, you don’t need to use the exercise function on the Halo View. But if you go for a run or a walk or practice yoga or lift weights on your own, then you can choose the exercise function on the halo device and within it, choose the workout you are starting. And again, when you finish, you make sure to stop it. You may need to click the stop button more than once. Otherwise, it keeps acting as if you are still in exercise mode, even though the watch face reverts to normal. It Once credited me with 16 hrs of yoga, even though it also tracked that I was asleep for a lot of that period. I had to restart the Halo view to get it back to normal. When you use the exercise function, you can even pause workouts and restart them, if needed. Walk, run, weights, Yoga, Hiit, rowing, cycling, and other are the categories available. Again, the intensity of the workout is tracked as you do it, and you are awarded points based on that. I have used walk, run, yoga, weights, and other depending on what I am doing. You can check your heart rate as you work out and time. I would advise people to certainly make use of this option, especially when doing yoga or pilates or when using lighter weights as otherwise, you are regarded as being sedentary. The more active workouts get tracked even if you don’t use the exercise function, because of the heart rate increase. Ideally, Amazon Halo wants you to earn a minimum of 150 points, which is in line with science-based health research. In their point system, you need to do at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week. or some mix of intense and moderate exercise to get to that level. 150 moderate, 75 intense, or 50 hours of light exercise! The fly in the ointment for many may be that if you are sedentary for over 8 hours on any day, it deducts 1 point per hour for each hour over 8 that you are sedentary. Sedentary includes time standing still. So to be sure of hitting whatever goal you are aiming for as far as points go, you need to make sure you earn some extra points each day to counteract these deductions. For me, the point system is fine. I do enough exercise and have increased my points consistently over the time I have been using Halo. I’m also fitter as I focus on increasing the number of intense minutes each week. So despite the frustration of the Halo App, using halo has been beneficial. The halo view also has tools like a stopwatch, alarm clock, and timer. I have used them all on occasion. I like the alarm as it begins with a nice vibration. I use it when I need to be sure to wake up for an early appointment or event. The settings function on the halo view allows one to initiate a sync with the app from the view (doesn’t usually make any difference currently in my experience as the app just doesn’t sync but previous to this glitch, I used the sync function a number of times). It also has Night mode where you can set times not to be disturbed at night, a do not disturb function, and watch face settings, where you can choose between a few different watch faces; brightness, raise to wake, reminders, vibrate, pin, device info, and the frequently used factory reset. I ended up disabling most of the extras in the settings. I don’t get message notifications. I don’t get the reminder to move every hour. It was one of the things I thought I’d like but since I can’t alter the hour setting to 1.5 hrs (or other…. would work better for my clients and me!…) and Halo doesn’t seem to count walking around the house/yard briefly as a valid movement, I found it slightly irritating, as per my original review. It probably has specific requirements so that something counts as a movement in this case. I disabled the “raise to wake” function also. Since I’m kind of minimalist in what I allow the Halo view to do, I get a decent battery life, often into day 7 before I have to recharge it. With raise to wake and reminders enabled, the battery would last 4-5 days, which wasn’t too bad. I’m going to re-enable some of these regular reminders and also try and sign up for one of the programs the next time I get the app to work in the hope that that might keep the Halo app from behaving as it currently does. If it works, I’ll update this review again. The Halo App As you probably read above, the app has given me a lot of problems over the last few weeks. It doesn’t sync but more annoyingly, it simply doesn’t load in the workouts, either in the Discover section or in the saved/favorites section. Prior to that, I liked it. I’ve used it since July 2022 (Prime day purchase) and we are now just into October 2022. The app began having major issues in mid-September. There are a great number of workouts and a great variety: cardio, strength, mobility, pilates, yoga etc. There are programs (a set of videos to be completed over a certain time period) and individual workouts available. There’s a discover section, which was my most frequently used section until it stopped loading in. It also has meditation (Headspace and others); Sleep programs; Relaxation programs. It has food advice and recipes. Links to Weight watchers etc. etc. A great variety of health resources are available when the app works. The search system is not great. It relies on filters and presumably there is some sort of metadata the creators need to put in place for it to work accurately. The filters include workout types, whether you want a workout or a program, the length of time, area of the body, etc. etc. My biggest issue has been looking for Pilates classes. One would think that just looking for Pilates without other filters would pull up all possible pilates classes, but no, it doesn’t. Since the app doesn’t work for me right now, I can’t tell you exactly where I located the class I was looking for but it wasn’t under Pilates although it most definitely IS a pilates class and not something else! The saving grace of the app is that when you do find classes you like, you can save them to your favorites list. Be sure to do that! I’ve mainly used the app for workouts and some meditation. **************************************************** Is it worth buying? The Halo View by itself is fine. Limited perhaps in some ways but ok as a basic level fitness tracker. I used a much more basic one for 2 years so it does more than that one. It also is about 3 times the price, when bought at full price so I don’t think it is worth that, if you are not going to avail of the paid membership afterwards. I didn’t choose a FitBit because many people found that it stopped working after a while. Well, I guess I’m in the same boat now with Halo. The Halo App and the material therein is what gives this system the most value when it works. I would be happy paying the monthly fee if I could access the various workouts and programs. That was part of the plus for me with it. But it has not been smooth usage. Even at the best of times, I have found it finicky. Yes, a few times everything loaded in immediately but mostly, it has taken too much time. I remember having 15 minutes one day where I thought, Oh, I’ll do a quick 10-minute cardio but it took 7 mins for the app to load. If you don’t have these types of issues, the system is worth it. If it loads in easily and syncs correctly, it is a wonderful aid to getting fitter and healthy. There are a good number of health resources in the app. The workouts are great. If you need a larger screen, well, that’s also a drawback. But when it worked, it was great. I had planned such a positive review in contrast to my first one. The last few weeks have soured me to the Halo again. Right now, I’m looking again at other systems. I had come to the conclusion before I bought it for the second time in July, that Halo or Apple Watch was the better system for me. Back to researching and checking my options. Still hoping that these issues with the App are temporary. I’m due to buy a new iPhone soon and will wait until then (I think) before I totally give up. If I can track my steps, workout intensity, etc. via the Halo View, I’ll manage for another while. Tech people, please solve this soon! ORIGINAL REVIEW, DEC 2021 I bought this to replace a cheaper fitness wristband. I had high hopes for halo, was looking forward to checking out their fitness videos etc. etc. however, it doesn’t seem to track steps accurately. For instance, I have turned on the notification to remind me to move after an hour. On the first day I used it, I had been outside, bringing in wood, walking up and down the steps, along the driveway etc. plenty of normal movement. I sat down at my computer for about 10 minutes and was notified that I needed to move as I hadn’t moved in almost an hour. This type of inaccuracy has been persistent over the last 2 weeks. I walk across the yard and a few minutes later, get notified that I need to move. I spend time working in the kitchen, walking from oven to counter to fridge etc. I get notified that I haven’t moved in an hour. I go up and down stairs, get told I haven't moved. Took my pilates class, and got notified that I hadn’t moved in an hour. I have tested the device for 2 weeks and these problems persist. Normal movement and walking are erratically detected. When I first posted the review, amazon got in touch within minutes and said they would look into the issue. There has been no improvement in how this particular device works. The fitness classes are only accessible through the phone app. I thought that I would be able to find them on my fire tablets or fire tv (with bigger screens) but no. There’s no Amazon app for halo. Yes, Apple appstore and Google apps have it for phones but nowhere else. Seriously, Amazon, you don’t make the halo fitness classes available within your own devices? 200+ classes sound great but there’s also no effective way of searching for a specific type of workout. You can filter duration, area of interest (cardio, outdoors etc.),or partner (Headspace, Orange Theory, ....) etc. etc. but surprisingly few workouts or programs show up in the results. The halo membership benefits and the movement notifications were the main reason I decided to try Halo view but I have been very disappointed so far. The screen is legible and clear. I really liked the ease of accessing data by swiping (up, down, across depending on what I wanted to see). Always responsive. easy to see and understand. The calorie estimate is just that, an estimate not to be relied on 100% but not bad. The step counter seems divorced from reality. It mostly undercounts but apparently also adds steps even when still. Adding steps I can get over .. that's not unusual with wrist devices... but not noticing that I am moving is weird. It doesn’t sync to Apple health. My older, cheaper fitness band did. The sleep analysis is ok. There’s a graph to look at that shows REM, light and deep sleep, awake time etc. I grew to dislike the points system, certainly as far as sleep goes but also eventually, the weekly point system. In my case, this was exacerbated by Halo View's inability to detect the fact that I had been walking. Severely disappointed. After 2 weeks, I am seriously under impressed. Returning it.