I just tried the Amazon Halo Rise to track my sleep — here’s what happened

Though some people (including me) don’t mind wear smartwatches or activity bands overnight to track sleep, there aren’t many options for tracking sleep at home without having a sensor-jammed device strapped to your body. The new Amazon Halo Rise is a contactless solution for those who are interested in understanding their sleep habits, as well the environmental factors that might be impacting their quality of rest.

To see how well the $139 Halo Rise identified my sleep cycles and trends based on micro-movements and ambient conditions, I went hands-on with the device for sleep tracking for a few nights. I plan to spend at least a full week testing the Halo Rise before coming to conclusions, but for now, here are my first impressions and everything else you need to know.

Amazon Halo Rise cheat sheet

• Amazon Halo Rise is a no-contact sleep tracker that senses micro-movements to determine your sleep stages and assign you a daily sleep score.
• It features a sunrise alarm clock, intended help you wake up slowly as the light gets brighter. You can opt to sync the sunrise alarm clock with sleep tracking to be awoken at the optimal time in your sleep cycle.
• The Halo Rise can read ambient light, light and humidity levels in the room. With this data, you might be offered suggestions to make environmental changes to the benefit of your rest.
• Halo Rise works best paired with an Alexa speaker. That way, you can ask Alexa to control the light and snooze your alarm. With a smart display, you can see your sleep score and sleep stage chart as well.

Amazon Halo Rise price and availability

Amazon Halo Rise is available as of November 21, 2022 for $139. To put the price in perspective, the sleep-tracking Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen), one of the best smart displays, costs $99. The top-rated Hatch Sunrise Alarm Clock is $129 on Amazon (opens in new tab), but while it has a speaker built-in, it does not have sleep tracking like the Halo Rise or Nest Hub.

Amazon Halo Rise design

The Amazon Halo Rise is a minimalistic-looking device, so it’s not one I minded leaving out on my nightside. It kind of looks like a white plate attached to a thin metal stand, and you might mistake it for some modern decor if not for the small digital display that shows the time. The clock is subtle, and its brightness changes based on ambient light — a feature also available in the Amazon Echo Dot with Clock (5th Gen) and Echo smart displays.

A semi-circle-shaped lamp lines half the Halo Rise’s face. While this light is used to simulate sunrise, it also functions as a smart light. I paired the Halo Rise’s light to my Alexa app so that I could use the assistant to turn the light on and off, as well as control the lamp’s brightness. 

Keeping with the clean aesthetic, there are just two buttons on top of the Halo View. The larger, oval-shaped button also controls the light but can be (and in my case, was) used to snooze alarms. The smaller, circular button turns the alarm off for the day, triggers sunset simulation at night and disables sleep tracking with a long press.

Amazon Halo Rise sleep tracking: How it works

When setting up Halo Rise, the Halo app prompted me to point it properly at my bed. In order to collect accurate data, the device needs to be angled towards your arm/chest and set up either at the same height your bed or a bit higher. My nightstand is a bit short, so I propped the Halo Rise up storage box until I can figure our a permanent solution. 

And that’s pretty much all there is to it. The first night sleeping next to the Halo Rise, the device automatically initiated sleep tracking. Even though I was in bed for an hour before falling asleep, Halo Rise accurately detected the point at which I entered dreamland. In the morning, I woke up without an alarm, since it was a Saturday. I opened the Halo app, where my data quickly populated to show me my sleep score, time asleep, time awake and my sleep stages chart.

In the Halo app, I also perused some literature on what I could do to improve my sleep quality. Separately, the Halo Rise reads ambient light, light and humidity levels in the location it’s positioned. I can check this data as well as see if there are any changes I should make for better rest. I know I have a lot of different light sources (status lights, night lights, etc.) in my bedroom, so I’m interested to see if the Halo Rise will suggest I try to limit them.

Otherwise, Halo Rise is designed to analyze the data of the person sleeping closest to the device, meaning my data shouldn’t be skewed if I share my bed. It also disregards someone else getting into my bed if I get into bed later, as long as I lay down closer to the Halo Rise. I had no issue with conflicting data in my first few nights of sleep, but I’ll have to see if that remains the case over a longer period of use.

On the third night I had the Halo Rise, I introduced an Amazon Echo Show 5 (2nd Gen) to my nightstand so that I would have a way to ask Alexa to snooze my Monday 8:00 a.m. alarm without moving. When I finally got out of bed, I asked Alexa to show me how I slept, and my sleep score and sleep stages chart appeared on the display. Now, I happen to think having an Alexa speaker or display is necessary for the most full-featured experience. I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon ultimately ends up bundling the Halo Rise with Echo smart display soon.

Amazon Halo Rise outlook

While I’m going to spend a few more nights sleeping next to the Amazon Halo Rise, I happen to think it’s a good solution for no-contact sleep tracking. The data from my first three nights seems accurate based on both my perception of my rest as well as the data collected from my Oura Ring and Apple Watch Ultra. Clearly, I’m not against to wearable sleep-trackers, but I’ve spoken to enough people who find wearing tech to bed uncomfortable. 

I also know that sunrise alarm clocks are gaining popularity, and while I didn’t really get to benefit from the feature on Halo Rise yet (I slept right up until hearing my alarm, oops!) I’m going to see if that changes in the next few days.