Apple to buy Oura after Amazon launches Halo and Google buys Fitbit?
Is Apple poised to buy Oura, maker of the Oura Ring? Will an acquisition like Oura enable Apple to compete with Amazon and Google for the lucrative prize of health, wellness and fitness data?
Apple - Oura
Make every workout count by syncing Oura with Apple Health.
You can sync data between Oura and your other health and activity apps by connecting Oura with Apple Health. Enable this connection during your initial setup or later on in your Oura settings.
If workouts imported from Apple Health include calorie data that exceeds Oura’s measures, those calories will be added to Oura’s calorie burn estimates. Imported calorie data cannot be changed in Oura. To edit calorie details, use the original app used to track your workout.
If the imported workout does not include calorie data, you can manually adjust the workout intensity (low, medium, or high) in Oura to better estimate your calorie burn.
Amazon Halo
Halo is Amazon’s new wearable device to compete with Apple Watch and Fitbit.
Amazon’s Halo will compete with Fitbit and Apple Watch, and start-ups like the Oura Ring. But the device not only allows customers to track things like exercise and sleep, which are common in fitness wearables, but can also track emotional changes by listening to the wearer’s tone of voice and can present a 3D body image with a body fat percentage.
Halo has taken the step of putting control of the collected health data in the hands of the individual, not the company that manufactured the device. Halo even includes a one-way hash that prevents other Amazon business units from using Halo data for other business purposes. Both of these are important markers for Amazon to lay down as it launches this new business line.
Google - Fitbit
Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President, Devices & Services, Google commented in a recent blog:
"Last year, we announced that Google entered into an agreement to acquire Fitbit to help spur innovation in wearable devices and build products that help people lead healthier lives. As we continue to work with regulators to answer their questions, we wanted to share more about how we believe this deal will increase choice, and create engaging products and helpful experiences for consumers.
There's vibrant competition when it comes to smartwatches and fitness trackers, with Apple, Samsung, Garmin, Fossil, Huawei, Xiaomi and many others offering numerous products at a range of prices. We don’t currently make or sell wearable devices like these today. We believe the combination of Google and Fitbit's hardware efforts will increase competition in the sector, making the next generation of devices better and more affordable. This deal is about devices, not data.
We’ve been clear from the beginning that we will not use Fitbit health and wellness data for Google ads.
We recently offered to make a legally binding...