Giving Jawbone’s UP a Shot

This past summer I ordered a Jambox from Jawbone. It’s proven to be just about the most enjoyable $200 I’ve ever spent. I’ve used it for parties, on vacations, on trips to the park, in cars and just about everywhere else. In fact, I’m using it right now as I type this. When Jawbone announced the UP personal health monitor, I figured it’d be worth a shot. At least I’d be supporting the company that has made me so happy these past several months.

The UP Life

The thing that convinced me to shell out $100 was the wristband (OK it’s a bracelet) and how beautifully designed it is. I love having products with great industrial design around. For some reason that makes me happy. So, I figured even if UP proved to not be too useful, I’d have a nice piece of ID in my apartment to fiddle around with once in a while.

It turns out, UP isn’t a letdown. There are some negative aspects to it, but it’s proven to be pretty fun and motivating so far.

What I Like About UP

UP tracks your sleep, movement, and eating. The act of tracking those three parts of your life is very enlightening. If you can imagine a Google Analytics for your health, that’s basically what UP does. Just the act of recording your health and measuring your results in comparison to the goals you’ve set is very motivating.

The most interesting feature is how it tracks your sleep. You can actually see when you’re in deep sleep, light sleep, and awake. It turns out I’m a very light sleeper while my fiance sleeps in long deep sleep stretches. I’m not sure what I’ll do with that information after a couple of weeks, but it’s still neat to learn something about our bodies that we might never have otherwise.

What I Don’t Like About UP

A lot has been made of the hassle of syncing UP with your phone. Instead of doing it all wirelessly through Bluetooth, UP requires you to plug it into the headphone jack of your phone. Honestly, I don’t think it’s a terrible process or, as some are saying, a kiss of death for the product. You really should only be checking your progress a few times a day and it’s hardly an overwhelming hassle to do the very quick sync. I imagine they tested doing Bluetooth or not and the battery drain proved more of a detriment than the manual sync.

The biggest thing I dislike about UP is the app, and in particular, the food tracking. To track meals, you take a photo of what you’re eating and an hour later, UP asks how that meal made you feel. I assume in the future UP will start telling me what to eat based on how the food has made me feel in the past. I’d like to see the food tracking be a little more scientific (like the rest of UP) and track the calories of each thing you eat. That way you could manage your health much more accurately.

It Accomplishes its Goal

I’m sure in the future they’ll update the app to improve the UX and incorporate more functionality. The promise of wearable technology is huge, even if it’s a bit creepy. But for now, the UP succeeds at making you more conscience of your health and encourages you to make choices that make you feel better.