The Halo Band is a no-frills, budget-friendly fitness tracker
Loren Brutsch is a writer and editor for Health and Verywell Health. She has a master’s in publishing and over five years of experience in strength training and bodybuilding. Combining her love of wellness and her love of writing—Loren specializes in creating content that promotes healthy living.
We independently research, test, review, and recommend the best products—learn more about our process. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a commission.
Amazon
Fitness trackers have always interested me—but not for the reasons you’d think.
I don’t care about timing my workouts, measuring my heart rate during a session, or counting how many calories I’ve burned (although there’s nothing wrong with these metrics). When I’m at the gym, all I care about is having a workout that leaves me pumped full of dopamine and feeling stronger than I was the day before. So why would I concern myself with fancy fitness trackers at all? Two reasons: I’m fascinated with my sleep and dedicated to my step goal (because I have a desk job).
Enter: Halo Band.
The Halo Band is a no-frills, budget-friendly ($70) activity tracker that stands up to the popular, high-end fitness trackers on the market. While the Halo Band offers workout and calorie-monitoring features, they’re not the stars of the show for me.
In the past, I’ve used trackers like the Oura Ring ($350) and looked into purchasing a Fitbit ($80-$200) or a Whoop (which is free for the band but requires a monthly subscription to use). But, because those trackers include so many fluffy features I’ll never use—blood oxygen levels, heart rate monitoring, GPS tracking, you name it—they’re not worth the price in my eyes.
As someone who just wants to ensure I’m getting in enough daily movement and wants to learn a little more about my sleep patterns, the Halo Band is a winner for me. What’s more—I find Halo Band’s sleep analytics incredibly accurate. Other sleep trackers I’ve used had clear discrepancies, but the Halo Band seems to be spot on.
Amazon
Buy now: Amazon Halo Band $70
Every night, the Halo Band tracks my sleep by monitoring:
The best part about having all of this nifty information is that I can use it to improve my sleep hygiene. Though the Halo Band won’t tell you why you’ve had a bad night’s sleep (that’s up to you to piece together, just like with any other tracker) it’ll assure you that your tiredness isn’t in your head. Its data will clearly say—yes you’ve had a bad night. And for me, that’s enough to get me on track. When I see that I’ve only had 6 hours of sleep one night, I make sure to prioritize sleep the next night. I make a conscious effort to lay off the caffeine during the day, do some deep breathing before bed, and shoot for a solid eight hours of shut-eye.
Besides the insightful sleep stats the Halo Band gives me, I also use the tracker to keep tabs on my daily step count. Before using the Halo Band, I mainly tracked my steps with my iPhone’s Health app. But this caused problems as I don’t always grab my phone for the little moments throughout the day—going downstairs to grab something, walking to the mailbox, or moving around the gym to pick up dumbells. Once I got the Halo Band (which is strapped to me day in and day out) I compared my Health app’s step count to my Halo Band’s. Almost every day I clocked an additional 1,500–2,500 steps on my Band compared to the Health app, which seems right on track.
While the Halo Band offers a monthly membership to access all features, unlike competitor options, opting out of the membership doesn’t render the tracker useless. You still retain full access to all the features worth using. Plus, if you opt for the membership, it’s an affordable $4 per month, whereas competitor subscriptions jump upwards of $30 per month.
The only downside I’ve found to the Halo Band? When I say the tracker is no-frills, that includes its appearance too. Unfortunately, it isn’t nearly as classy in aesthetics as its competitors, so you shouldn’t expect to wear this to any fancy events. The good news is that it has accessory band options, so you can spice it up by ditching the velcro fabric strap that comes with the tracker. But the accuracy, price point, and ease of use of the Halo Band more than make up for the lack of sparkle around its presentation.
Thank you, {{form.email}}, for signing up.
There was an error. Please try again.
