In my introductory post for We Wear It, I said that part of our goal for the 99 days is to help people learn about the wide variety of wearable devices that are available, their various capabilities, how they work for different lifestyles, and how all of this health and fitness data fits into the policy picture. In other words, it’s more than just steps.
Wearable: Jawbone Up Move, Jawbone Up 2, Jawbone Up 3, Jawbone Up 4
Who’s Wearing It: Courtney (Move), Whitley (Move), Nick (Jawbone 3)
What It Does: Activity tracking, calorie burn estimates, sleep tracking, smart coaching, idle alerts (2), heart rate (3), plus exercise logs, food and water tracking, social sharing including the ability to challenge friends to a duel in the UP app .
Next to Fitbit, Jawbone is the most prevalent and well-known fitness tracker line. We’re trying two of them for the try-on-athon: The Up Move, and the Up 3.
The Up Move is the original. A small device that clips to clothing or can be worn around the wrist, it tracks steps, distance, activity, and sleep. The device’s LED display will give you the time, progress towards your defined goals (steps, distance, calories burned, sleep duration, etc.).
The Up 3 is worn on the wrist and does all of that same tracking but incorporates some additional features, including a heart rate monitor. The device’s ‘Smart Alarm’ senses your sleep cycle and wakes you at the least disruptive point within 30 minutes of your wake time. Set the ‘Idle Alert’ and the device will vibrate when you’ve been sitting (or just not active) for too long.
There are two Jawbone devices we don’t have: The Up 2 is similar to the 3 but without the heart rate monitor and the new Up 4 incorporates tap-to-pay with an eligible American Express Card.
The Up app integrates with the entire line of Jawbone wearables and provides insight on activities and sleep.
All of the Jawbone devices also come with Smart Coach, which gives you nudges and reminders during the day via the app. And as you track activity, sleep, food, etc., the coach gets smarter and changes notifications based on what it’s learned about you.
All of Jawbone family devices allow you to find friends and family to meet your goals together, or pick someone for a one-on-one, steps duel lasting one, three, or seven days. Like we mentioned in a previous post, studies have shown that people who share information about their activity and fitness are more prone to staying on track toward goals. According to Jawbone, when UP community members have more than three friends on their team, they move at least 10 extra miles a month.
The app also has a food log and displays calories eaten versus burned, and the ability to log exercise not automatically tracked by the device, like a spin class, yoga, or other workouts.
