Unveiled on November 4 2014, Jawbone UP3 is a health and fitness wristband, which relies on multiple sensors and a tri-axis accelerometer to collect and analyse your health data to give you insight into your heart health, sleep patterns, calories burnt and more.
Designed by Swiss designer Yves Béhar, Jawbone UP3 is a stylish, one-size fits all band that comes with an adjustable strap to provide a more comfortable fit. UP3 is the sleekest and thinnest Jawbone activity tracker with dimensions 220 x 12.2 x 9.3mm and weight 29g.
Jawbone UP3 is supported by the Jawbone UP app (available on AppStore and Google Play store) that provides a dashboard view of your activities, idle time, calories burnt, and more.
Some noteworthy features in Jawbone UP3 include:
Heart health monitoring: Using bio-impedance sensors, it measures and gives insight into your resting heart rate (heart rate upon waking up), which is considered as a key indicator to one’s overall health. With over-the-air firmware update released on September 8 2014, the UP3 tracker now also monitors passive heart rate throughout the day. It helps you get an insight into how your diet, sleep and work is affecting your heart health.
Sleep Monitoring: It gives a detailed insight into your different sleep stages throughout the night: Deep, Light and REM.
Smart Coach: It acts as a personal trainer and uses the health data captured by the tracker to deliver personalised guidance , which can be received as notifications on your
Smart Alarm: It analyses your sleep cycle and wakes you up at a period of light sleep to ensure that you wake up feeling refreshed.
Food Logging: Jawbone UP app allows you to log your meals by just taking a photo of your food or using the barcode scanner or restaurant menu search. The app stores nutritional information for a number of food items and gives them a food score between 1-10 to help you know if you are eating right.
Teammates: To keep you motivated, it allows you to add teammates and let you challenge your friends and family to a competition and compare health data.
Post the firmware update released on September 8, 2014, the UP3 tracker is now available in 6 colours, with a battery life of up to 7 days with a full charge. Priced at USD 179.99, it is compatible with Android and iOS devices.
Hot or Not?
- What’s Hot: To calculate your calorie burn, Jawbone UP3 takes into account your step count and uses BMR method, which considers your age, weight, height and activity. The UP3 tracker has the ability to log a number of step-based sports, including running, hiking, tennis and even Zumba. For non-step-based workouts, like yoga or cycling, the UP app helps you to log the effort level and duration to estimate calorie burn. The UP3 tracker syncs with your mobile wirelessly using Bluetooth so you don’t have to undergo the hassle of plugging it in to upload your data. It vibrates to nudge you, if you have been inactive for too long. You can also specify the time till you want to receive the alerts. For example, you can pre-set the tracker to stop nudging you after 11 pm. By monitoring your food intake, Smart Coach makes recommendations for healthier eating. Stellar Point:While your health data is stored in the app as soon as the tracker syncs with your phone, you have the power to manage the privacy settings to decide which data is shared with your teammates.
- What’s Not: Although the band features three LED lights that indicate the mode the UP3 tracker is in: sleep (orange), activity (blue), white (notifications from the UP app), it doesn’t offer any OLED display to show your health data. This means to check your sleep activity, step count or any other health data, you need to open the UP app. It also doesn’t offer updates for incoming calls and texts (a feature available in smartwatches and most other fitness bands) even though it is paired with the smartphone. While the tracker is splash-resistant, it is not water-resistant. Thus, you are required to remove it before showering, swimming, surfing and sauna and steam sessions. A word of caution: As the band relies on sensors for collecting your health data, it needs to be worn tight to ensure accurate reading. As per our ongoing conversation with users, some reported that the band leaves behind pressure imprints.
The Bottomline: The Jawbone tracker offers some good features like smart alarm and monitoring your resting and passive heart rate. However, at Greyhound Research, we believe that in-built display and text and call notifications are some of the features that Jawbone needs to add to be able to hold any ground for itself in the fiercely crowded and competitive fitness tracker space.
Would you want to invest in a health and activity tracker like this? Leave us a line (or two) to let us know.
About The Author: Sanchit Vir Gogia is the Chief Analyst & CEO of Greyhound Research, an independent IT & Telecom Research & Advisory firm. He also serves as Chief Futurist, Founder & CEO of Greyhound Knowledge Group that operates under four brands – Greyhound Research, Greyhound Sculpt, Greyhound Technocrat and Greyhound Vivo. To read more about him, click here.
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