Jawbone UP fitness band improves activity awareness

Jawbone makes some of the best Bluetooth headsets and speaker so it wasn't much of a surprise that their new health device, the UP, is also built very well. Can the UP help you improve your health through activity tracking and team motivation?

Check out my full review of the Jawbone UP on the ZDNet Mobile Gadgeteer blog.

The front of the retail package shows the UP in clear plastic. 

The bottom part of the package slides down to reveal the USB cable and small guide.

The 3.5mm plug on the UP band fits into this cable and then into a USB port for charging.

The UP comes with a removable cap on the 3.5mm plug. Unfortunately, they are easy to lose and I lost mine after a week.

The UP band is comfortable on my wrist.

I bought the large size and as you can see that just fits me. The XL may be better, but these are not yet in stock so I just went with the large size.

I wear a watch too, but as you can see the UP fits well even with a watch.

Here you can see the silver part of the 3.5mm plug cap on the UP.

The first step in using your UP band is to install the iOS app and then connect the UP to your 3.5mm headset jack to activate the UP.

Press the button to initiate the activation setup procedure. In the future you won't use the button on the UP band.

I experienced errors in the beginning because I did not have the headset volume up all the way and that must control the power to the plug.

Enter your name, email, and a password to setup the UP service.

You need to enter in your body information so that calculations can be made by the software for distance, calories burned, and more.

After you enter in this information then your UP band will be synced and setup for use.

You can then setup goals for sleep, eating, and moving that will later be tracked and presented in the software.

There are some help files in the software that give you information like the details of the UP band.

You can change the modes by pressing on th end button of the UP.

You can also use the UP band during workouts if you choose.

You need to also manually turn off the workout mode when you are done.

This help files shows you how to charge up your UP band.

There are several options available for you to choose from to add an activity.

You can also use your iPhone with GPS receiver to track workouts using the UP software.

You can view and change your settings later in your profile.

Setup your smart alarm to wake you when your sleep is light within 30 minutes of your normal wake time.

Reminders can also be setup to vibrate your UP band on a regular basis so you get up and move.

You can control the privacy and sharing settings and by default everything is set to private.

You can join existing challenges or even create your own by filling out this form.

Here is the main screen that appears when you launch the UP application and as you can see it shows my sleep, move, and eat stats for today.

If you rotate your device into landscape orientation then you can see more of your stats and also slide right and left to view previous data. 

You can tap on a specific event while in landscape and view even more details.

The different kinds of data that you capture are color coded for easy viewing.

Sleep data is provided with data shown as light sleep and deep sleep. The UP band uses advanced algorithms and the motion sensor to figure out these results.

Here you can see there is some eat/food data included in my activity timeline.

You can view team data for sleep, moving, and eating.

If you tap on a team member then you can view more specific information too, if they chose to share it.

The food log is pretty basic and doesn't have much purpose for the UP band. You can actually perform all of the food capture without having an UP band.

Jawbone UP image gallery 1