Monday, November 11, 2013

Jawbone Up Review

So I purchased the Jawbone UP back in July and I think I've had it long enough to have an informed opinion about the band and that would be, it's not quite ready for prime time. If I had the opportunity to do it all over again I wouldn't purchase the UP instead I'd be talking hard look at the Fitbit Force.

While the UP does a good job of tracking physical activity and sleep it has a number of deficiencies that keep me from recommending it. First there is no wireless sync option. Originally, I didn't think that it would bother me but it has become cumbersome to sync the band by plugging the band into my phone's headphone jack but it's become a PITA. Second, there is no external display where you can check your daily activity progress or see what time it is. Third, there is no website for you to track your progress everything has to be done via the phone interface.

Finally, charging is problematic. In order to charge the band you need to connect it's head phone jack connector to a special cable that connects to a USB port. Also, the battery sometimes will not take a charge, I'm on my second band since July and a friend of mine is in the same boat.

All in all, I love the idea of life tracking I just don't think this is the product for me.

1 comment:

David Underwood said...

My wife had one of these. Correction: She had three of these. The button broke twice in the same way, and eventually she got tired of RMAing it. Shame, because she really liked it for tracking her daily step count and sleep cycle.