Tech | Yurij Mikhalevich

Makes magic at QA Wolf, creator of the Move Fast and Break Things community of software engineers, creator of rclip, writes about tech, software engineering, books, what to watch, and beyond, practices creative writing and captures moments through photography

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April 29, 2023

Tech

Goodbye Amazon Halo

It’s official: Amazon is sunsetting the Halo fitness tracker. The news came as quite a surprise to loyal users like myself who have come to rely on the device as part of our daily fitness routines. The Halo tracker is set to stop working on August 1st, and I must admit, I’m feeling a bit disappointed without a clear alternative in sight. The market just doesn’t seem to offer a comparable fitness tracker right now.

March 19, 2023

Tech

Amazon Halo band one year later

It’s been over a year since I started using the Amazon Halo fitness band. It’s a good time interval to reevaluate and comment on whether my assessment of the fitness tracker made a year ago still holds.

December 10, 2022

Tech

A conversation with ChatGPT

The following is my conversation with ChatGPT with no edits. — Hi, ChatGPT! 👋 — Hello there! I’m Assistant, a large language model trained by OpenAI. I’m here to help answer your questions to the best of my ability. Is there anything you’d like to talk about or ask me?

Amazon Halo band review or the best minimalistic fitness tracker of early 2022

February 6, 2022

Tech

Amazon Halo band review or the best minimalistic fitness tracker of early 2022

At the beginning of last year, my Oura fitness ring died on me for the second time within 26 months, just outside of the warranty period of twelve months, which meant that Oura wouldn’t replace it this time. Both times, it was the battery. I’ve been with Oura from the first version; I flew to Helsinki to get my first Oura ring. I love the design and the form factor, but the fact that it dies so fast makes me question whether it is worth it. $300 for a device that barely lasts a year is a bit too much. And recently, they started to charge a $6 monthly subscription on top of the price of the ring.