Amazon
Amazon unveiled a bedside sleep tracker — no wearable device required.
What it is: Amazon Rise is part sleep monitor, part light therapy, and part alarm clock. Using low-energy sensors, the device senses and analyzes micro-movements—as well as atmospheric conditions like temperature, humidity, and light exposure—while you slumber.
Functioning as an alarm clock, Rise uses a sun-emulating light to gently wake you. Of note, the device does not have any cameras, microphones, or displays.
Between the lines: Purchasing the $140 Rise automatically includes a free six-month membership to Amazon’s Halo platform, where data is stored. And since Rise has no interface or smart speaker abilities, decoding sleep becomes dependent upon another spoke in Amazon’s ecosystem.
Why it matters: Sleep is a pillar of good health. And Big Tech, including Amazon, has been looking beyond general wellness for some time now — pitching monitoring devices to doctors and researchers for a place in the $6.9T healthcare industry.
Zooming out. Interestingly, in the non-contact sleep monitoring space, Amazon could have made a 1:1 copy of Google’s second-gen Nest Hub, which does everything Rise can do with an added screen and microphone.
But it didn’t. So, Amazon could just be attempting to drum up subscribership for its often-overlooked Halo platform and wristband.
Takeaway: Even if Amazon is making a strategic play into the $585B sleep economy, it’ll need to improve the overall buy-in of its ecosystem. Otherwise, it’s just another smart device in a massive category of wristbands, rings, headbands, mattresses, and more.
