Amazon takes on Apple Watch with device that reads emotions

Such voice tracking technology may alarm some privacy conscious customers. While Amazon and technology companies have tried to assure customers that their smart devices such as Alexa cannot be used for eavesdropping, last year it emerged that contractors were listening to voice clips gathered by a range of smart speakers and voice assistants. 

Alexa, Google’s Assistant, Apple’s Siri and Facebook were all found to have been taking sample recordings from voice assistants and using them to train artificial intelligence algorithms. 

Amazon said Halo’s voice system deletes all once they have been analysed for tone. The device claims to pick up on pitch, intensity and rhythm from a voice to check if the user is happy, bored, confused, apologetic or affectionate. 

In a blog post, Amazon medical officer Dr Maulik Majmudar said: “I have been working from home with three kids under the age of four, so I use Tone to gut check that I am not taking any stress out on my family or friends.

“I check my Tone results so that I can be more intentional about how I communicate in these strange times – and have noticed it takes a burden off my wife, as she doesn’t have to be the one to tell me I am overly stressed.”