The Amazon Echo Buds are the smart home giant's first true wireless earbuds, and they've just been given a host of new features to help you track your workouts.
Initiated via Alexa voice commands, the wireless earbuds can now monitor runs and other types of exercise, tracking your steps, calories burned, your speed, and distance.
- Read our Amazon Echo Buds review
- The best true wireless earbuds of 2020
- The top Black Friday headphones deals we've spotted so far
According to The Verge, the Echo Buds use built-in accelerometers to track your steps, which is used alongside personal stats you enter into a workout profile in the Alexa app.
By using your height and weight alongside the step-tracking data picked up by the Echo Buds, Amazon says it can "calculate the distance of your runs and walks and the amount of calories burned".
Starting a workout can be done by giving commands like "Alexa, start my run", and you can check on your performance by asking things like "Alexa, what's my pace?".
Running buds
Amazon says that the new feature should start rolling out to users over the next few days – just in time to snap a pair up over Black Friday.
Whether the new features will pave the way for stronger integration with the company's first fitness band, the Amazon Halo, remains to be seen; you can't buy the Amazon Halo just yet (it's currently available to buy via invite only), with a wider release date still to be announced.
In any case, the fitness tracking features could heighten the competition between the Amazon Echo Buds and the Apple AirPods, which don't offer any workout monitoring functionality.
Still, we weren't exactly enamored with the sound quality offered by Amazon's headphones; in our Amazon Echo Buds review, we noted that sound quality and battery life leave a lot to be desired when compared to the competition, even though their connectivity and value for money is undeniably good.
That value for money could be heightened over Black Friday, which falls on November 27 this year; in fact, we've already seen some fantastic Echo Buds discounts among the early Black Friday headphones deals. If you're on the hunt for a pair of Echo Buds, check out the best prices we've found below:
- The best running headphones you can buy today
