Amazon Teams Up With Fitbit, Makes Alexa A Fitness Guru
Amazon Echo’s personal assistant, Alexa, can serve as your financial advisor by paying your Capital One bill, your personal chef by ordering Dominos, and now she can act as your personal trainer. The smart speaker now works with health tracking company Fitbit to provide users with details about their daily fitness routine.
Fitbit announced on Thursday that it had teamed up with Amazon to bring voice-enabled health aspects to Echo, allowing users of the fitness tracker to simply ask Alexa how they’re doing, rather than fiddling with the tracker itself.
Once the Fitbit skill is enabled with Echo, users can prompt Alexa to detail their daily health stats, such as “Alexa, how many steps have I taken today.”
“This Fitbit integration adds convenience and fun to the daily routines of Fitbit users in the U.S., letting them incorporate activity tracking even more seamlessly into their busy, on-the-go lifestyles,” the company says in a statement.
Alexa recognizes a wide range of voice-enabled requests about your Fitbit activities for any day within the previous week, including how you slept last night, how many active minutes you’ve logged, or the number of calories you’ve burned.
In addition to providing health stats, Alexa will be able to show encouragement to Fitbit users, essentially turning into a fitness coach.
For example, if you inquire about your step count at 9 a.m., you might be reminded that “you’ve got to start somewhere,” or encouraged to “try to take a walk today, but don’t forget to stop and smell the roses.”
“We’re thrilled to add the Fitbit skill to our Alexa-enabled devices—this skill brings a whole new level of convenience for customers who are looking for new ways to keep track of their health and fitness goals,” Rob Pulciani, Director Amazon Alexa, said.
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