You've probably read all the stories about how sitting for too long can kill you. How prolonged sitting causes discomfort, numbness and spine misalignment. I have a new magic weapon — the newly relaunched Jawbone Up.
If I've been sitting for too long at my desk in the Mashable newsroom I'll feel a slight vibration on my wrist — a gentle nudge. It's the Jawbone Up fitness bracelet I've been wearing for the past week, letting me know it's time to get up and take a little walk — I've been idle too long. At least, my body has.
The Jawbone Up is a bracelet designed to help you learn to live a healthier lifestyle. The band itself is rubbery, with a rigid build that helps it stay firmly in place. It's also flexible enough so it moves with you. And it comes in eight colors so you can probably find one that blends in with the colors you gravitate to most often.
It's designed to be worn all day and all night (more about that later) and with the help of the Up iOS app, it monitors and tracks your sleep, your movements or activity, your food, and your mood.
How it Works
To track your activity, all you need to do is wear the bracelet. The built-in accelerometer keeps track of your steps, how long you've been active and how long you've been sitting, converting that into data when you sync the device with your iPhone.
Before going to sleep, you simply press one end of the bracelet (the two ends overlap rather than clasp) and put it into nighttime mode. It will track your sleep by movement, or lack thereof. It's smart enough to know when I've actually woken up for good, and switches back to daytime mode.
After a few false starts of trying to sync my data, I was able to get a good reading of my daily habits. I actually sleep pretty well, equal amounts light and deep — just not long enough. And I do a fair amount of walking, thanks to my commute, but I also do a whole lot of sitting.
That's where my favorite part of the Up come into play. Through the app, you can set your goals and customize other settings so it gently reminds you to do things. I have it set so that if I haven't gotten up in an hour, it vibrates to remind me. It's smart enough to know the difference between the movement of my hand, and my walking to the other side of Mashable HQ to fill my water or just stretch my legs.
The bracelet also makes a great alarm clock. Since it knows when you're in the deepest and lightest stages of sleep, you can tell it what time you want to get up. When you are in your lightest stage of sleep, within 20 to 30 minutes of that time, it will vibrate to wake you. I haven't tried this, since I don't want to give up the extra sleep time. Mashable Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff, who has also been testing a Jawbone Up, has had success with the alarm mode for waking up during his light sleep stage. He uses it and says he wakes up feeling refreshed and full of energy. Watch the video above for more of my conversation with Lance about the pros and cons of the Up.
Comfort
You're supposed to wear the bracelet 24/7, and Jawbone is now up to that task. It's been re-engineered from last year's model which didn't hold up as well to water and the environment. You can now shower with it and basically set it and forget it. I had a hard time doing this — I found I was getting the open ends caught on things like the handle of a shopping bag. I also didn't like washing dishes or showering with it and preferred to take it off. While the bracelet itself isn't big and clunky, it does often get in the way of my typing.
Tracking
In addition to your physical movement and your sleep, the Up will also help track your food intake. To log your food, you can take a picture of it, scan a barcode, or search for a product from Jawbone's database. This lets you monitor your calories and dietary habits.
You can only do this using the app which makes the process a little cumbersome. You get a fair amount of data which will help make you more aware of your dietary habits, but you do need to take the time to tell it what's up.
Downsides of Up
My biggest complaint is there is no wireless connectivity with the Up. To sync your data, you take the bracelet off your wrist, take the end cap off one end, and plug the 3.5mm plug into your iPhone's headphone jack. Each time I do this I'm convinced I will lose the little end piece, though I haven't yet. For this reason, I sync my data every two days or so, but I would like to be able to look at my data more often, the way I can with other Bluetooth-enabled fitness gadgets.
I also miss being able to look at my info while wearing the bracelet. I like to see how many steps I've taken in a day, or how many calories I've burned after 30 minutes on the elliptical. With other devices I've tried, such as the Fitbit, I can immediately look at the device and see that. The Nike+ FuelBand displays the data right on the bracelet. With the Up, I can only see the data when I've physically taken it off and synced it with my phone.
The battery life is excellent; Jawbone says it will last nine to ten days without needing a charge. This is a good thing because to charge it, you have to take the end cap off and connect the device to the computer via a dongle — and if you lose it, you are out of power.
If you enjoy sharing your fitness accomplishments with your social networks, this is not the way to do it. There is no social sharing of data, no tweets declaring how many miles you've run. Instead you can form teams and your teammates can swap info and updates on fitness goals.
Should You Buy?
The Jawbone Up us a very good fitness device if you want to track movement and calories. At $129 ($20 less than the Nike+ Fuelband), I would like it better if syncing were wireless. The clock features work great and I enjoyed knowing what kind of sleep I'm getting, but I wish it told me more about why I need to know this, or how I can improve my sleep.
If you don't mind having to physically sync your data, and remember to put the device into sleep mode every night, it's a nice-looking bracelet that will help keep you on track.
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