As if Amazon had not already elbowed its way into our lives enough, now they’re in the wearable health and fitness tracker business. Enter the Amazon Halo.

There are some features that make the Halo different from Apple watches or other wearable fitness trackers. Halo’s wristband doesn’t have any display. To get information, you need the app. But the two features below are more notable and worrisome:

1. Halo listens in on your conversations all day long, sending it to Amazon for analysis of your “tone”.

2. Halo requests four full-body photos of you in your undies that it sends to Amazon, so it can do a body-fat analysis on you.

Let’s start with the first one. Yes, Halo is actually a tone judger and tone policer, one you’re supposed to pay good money for (well, $99, which includes a six-month subscription to the app). What do I mean here? Let’s see what this review from the Washingon Post had to say.

You train the device to recognize your voice by reading sample phrases, and then it listens out constantly for moments in conversation that go beyond your neutral tone… The Halo plots these moments as positive vs. negative and high vs. low energy, and then applies more nuanced descriptors to them.

Amazon said it spent years training its tone AI by having people categorize voice recordings. The company held internal trials and says it tried to address any biases that might arise from varying ethnicity, gender, or age.

In our experience, the Halo could detect ups and downs in our voice, but seemed to misinterpret situations regularly. And some of the feedback feels, ironically, a bit tone-deaf — especially when judging a woman’s voice.

In short, the reviewers felt like Halo was at best not insightful in judging tone, and at worst kind of offensive. Here’s more from the reviewers:

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Now, one thing that people like about biometric trackers is that, once the app has analyzed your info, it then offers you a plan for improving on whatever state it has judged you to be in. But what are we supposed to do about our tone of voice? Does Halo have a plan for that? Uh, no. It doesn’t even tell you when you sounded rushed or sad or irritated or enraged or wistful, much less what to do about it. The reviewers sounded, in my judgment, displeased:

…there are no personalized suggestions based on your tone, such as how to sound less “sad” in the middle of an isolated holiday season during a pandemic.

The Halo has invented a new personal behavior to feel self-conscious about, which we suppose is a kind of innovation.

I judge that last utterance tone as ironic.

On to feature 2)– the analysis of nearly-naked 360-view photos you are supposed to send to Amazon for body fat analysis. Here’s a photo of what they have in mind.

So many things wrong here– for brevity’s sake (and because I love them), I’ll make a list:

• Send identified photos of me (along with loads of other biometric data) to Amazon for analysis, with their wimpy privacy promises? Hell to the no.
• The accuracy of Halo’s body fat analysis is unproven; the Post reviewers found some problems and inconsistencies.
• Halo doesn’t even pretend to offer any physical activity suggested based on the information you provide; instead it offers some audio and video recordings from other companies, and you can choose what to do yourself.

Honestly, I could get a lot more information about how some outside authority thought I looked by visiting my relatives. And unlike Halo, they would follow up with customized advice, just for me. Guaranteed.

Readers, have any of you tried the Halo? X-ray glasses? Do you worry about sending loads of data to our technology overlords? Let me know– I’d love to hear your stories, and I promise not to share them with anyone…

Zoom is where we live, work and play now. It’s an all-purpose mode for working. socializing, exercise, worship, therapy, education, politics, healthcare… pretty much everything. I’ll use it as a verb to text a friend, “zooming now; talk later”.

Now that we’re all zooming to everything all the time, people are starting to develop new zoom norms for everything from what to wear in zoom meetings (from the waist up, that is– pj bottoms are always in zoom fashion), to how best to create good lighting for yourself in a zoom setting. Designer/director Tom Ford wrote a piece in the New York Times on how to look good on camera.

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There is loads of advice about how to look your best in zoom meetings. Mostly it’s about good lighting, but you can read more here.

One thing I haven’t seen people writing about, though, is how to FEEL good in a zoom meeting. How do you make yourself feel comfortable in a virtual interaction that’s important to you?

I’ve been trying out different body postures and laptop locations and configurations over the past couple of weeks, and I’ve learned a few things.

First and foremost, my body has to be comfortable. For me that means not sitting for hours at my dining room table. I prefer having my feet comfortably on the floor and being able to lean forward and back and move around in my chair, adjusting with pillows or cushions. Sometimes I sit on the floor of my living room with my laptop on an ottoman. That way I can move my legs around and stretch or adjust however I need.

I’ve also tried standing, facing my laptop (set up on an ottoman on my dining room table). That works for a meeting, but not for teaching. If I’m standing while teaching, I want to move around. But I can’t, as I’m tied to the laptop most of the time. This is a learning process, and I’m trying to pay attention to what works and what makes me feel the least creaky over hours of meetings and teaching.

Second, not all zoom meetings are work-related. I go to zoom church on Sundays, have zoom chats with friends and zoom therapy as well. For me, this means finding a body posture and options for motion that suit the purpose and feeling of the activity. I found that I need to sit more forward in order to sing during zoom church. And for therapy, I want to be more physically aware of my body while talking and listening. Both of these situations require a shift in how or where I place myself. I’ve noticed definite improvements in the quality of the zoom experience by paying closer attention to the ways I’m physically holding myself.

Finally, I have zoom yoga to thank for my awareness of my own bodily comfort or discomfort in all these zoom settings. The great thing about zoom yoga is that it’s actually yoga. You’ve got your mat, and you’re actually doing real yoga in your own body, being cued and directed by the instructor online. I found it easy to feel comfortable in the virtual yoga classes, as what I did was the same. What I wore was the same. What they said was the same. Yay for sameness!

With all that is new and different about virtual meetings and activities, reminding myself that I’m in the same body, and that body has different wants and needs in different situations (even virtual ones) has made zooming a bit easier.

Now all I need is some better lighting.

Readers, how are you managing with doing everything A to Z over zoom? How are your bodies faring? Are you doing anything different for particular situations? I’d love to hear from you.