Amazon axes Halo health unit, lays off employees, and provides hardware refunds

Today, Amazon notified its Halo customers of the closure of its Halo Health department, which will take effect on July 31. As part of the announcement, Amazon disclosed that there would be job cuts and that individuals who bought hardware in the past year would receive complete refunds.

This encompasses a variety of items, such as Amazon Halo View, Halo Band, Halo Rise, and several accessories. While not a unique decision (Google also did something comparable when it terminated Stadia), it demonstrates good faith toward customers and an implicit admission that the hardware's value will decrease after its services cease. Furthermore, the corporation will terminate subscription fees and repay any prepaid fees.

“At Amazon, we think big, experiment, and invest in new ideas like Amazon Halo in our efforts to delight customers,” the company notes in a letter addressed to Halo Member. Starting from the beginning of August, all the products mentioned earlier will no longer be operational. Amazon has also provided instructions on how to recycle the hardware and save scanned images to a phone's camera roll.

However, those who are affected by the job cuts do not seem to have received significant prior notice. 

“We notified impacted employees in the US and Canada today. In other regions, we are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies and possibly result in longer timelines to communicate with impacted employees. For employees who are impacted by this decision, we are providing packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support,” read the note. 

Towards the end of the previous month, the corporation declared 9,000 job cuts, in addition to the 18,000 it had made since January. The initial round of cuts had a more significant effect on Amazon's hardware divisions, with a particular emphasis on the Alexa/Echo team.