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Fitness wearables are all the rage, but for many tech models the process of retrieving the information means plugging up the device to your... Alexa Now Updates You On Your Health

Fitness wearables are all the rage, but for many tech models the process of retrieving the information means plugging up the device to your computer and comparing the results by hand. While some will stream the data to a mobile device app for convenience, Amazon has taken the ease of use even further, Alexa-style.

Amazon Echo

Amazon’s popular virtual assistant that streams through its Echo device will now tell you what’s up with your health based on your FitBit use. By syncing your Echo with your wearable and activating the feature in your account, you can ask Alexa to vocally update you on your sleep patterns, calories burned, and more. The virtual assistant not only calculates work done, but also tallies up the effort you need to put into your workouts in order to reach your fitness goals, all with that soothing “What are you doing, Dave?” voice of hers.

Amazon has been sneered at for its efforts to control your house–and therefore, your life–through its Echo/Alexa assistant, but the reality is a far more demonstrable example of some of the utmost in updatable technology. New Echo capabilities appear weekly; some of them are vapidly pointless, like the ability to make fart sounds on command, while others are far more useful, like the option to ask Alexa to tell you all the showtimes for movie theaters in your town.

This ability to incorporate new capabilities has been part of Amazon’s business model since its first forays into tech with its Kindle e-reader. Customers who bought some of the later models as early as 2009 were pleasantly surprised to get emails that said things like, “Your Kindle is now also an MP3 player,” or “Your Kindle can now surf the internet.”

Despite its growing catalog of tech devices, Amazon seems to determined to keep its customers’ expensive devices from becoming obsolete. With the ongoing feature additions to Echo–and the new Echo Dot, which plays off your existing Echo base model to put Alexa’s power in any room of your house–the company is working to ensure the most value for the money in terms of tech upgrades and updates.