Amazon’s Echo Buds get new fitness tracking features

I wasn’t super impressed when I reviewed the Echo Buds around this time last year, but Amazon’s first shot at Alexa-powered fully wireless earbuds was passable. And while they’ve already been on the market for a while now, the company’s continuing to deliver some key updates, including today’s addition of new fitness features.

Say “Alexa, start my workout” with the buds in, and they’ll begin logging steps, calories, distance, pace and duration of runs. Like many new software additions, this one will take a few days to roll out for everyone. This one also requires users to enable the new tracking feature using the Alexa app.

Once enabled, you can state/ask follow-ups, like:

• “Alexa, start my run”
• “Alexa, pause my walk”
• “Alexa, end my workout”
• “Alexa, how far have I run?”
• “Alexa, what’s my pace?”
• “Alexa, how was my workout?”

Asking, “Alexa, how was my workout?” After the fact will pull up your historical running stats.

As I noted previously, the Echo Buds didn’t really do much to set themselves apart from myriad other earbuds, though there certainly was a lot to be said for the price — then $130. At the moment, they’re discounted much further, now running $80 — which makes them a solidly competitive deal.