Jawbone’s announced its latest fitness bands, the budget-priced Up Move and the premium Up 3. Here’s my early thoughts.
Jawbone’s particular pitch for the wearables market has long focused on fitness, and its latest two bands — well, one of them’s actually more of a pendant, but you know what I mean — continue that trend. I got to spend a little time checking out the Jawbone UP Move and UP3 in Sydney this week.
The UP Move is Jawbone’s take on the long-battery-life fitness tracker — so taking on devices like the Garmin Vivofit — at a budget price point of $69. In many ways it’s a really solid alternative on the UP24, because it has the same essential tracking characteristics — sleep, activity, bluetooth sync to the existing UP app for iOS and Android — at a cheaper price point.
That being said, you don’t get immediate wrist wearing ability, with the $69 price buying you the Move pendant and a belt/bra/shirt clip. If you do want to wear it on your wrist, a pack of three different coloured watch bands will set you back $39.
One neat touch with the UP Move is that it uses its status lights and circular frame to act as a simple analog-style watchface. Nothing fancy, and according to Jawbone’s Head of International Partner & Product Development Jorgen Nordin, while they’ve looked into incorporating full watchfaces into their bands, issues surrounding battery life make that a less compelling prospect.
I’ve generally had very good experiences with Jawbone’s particular fitness trackers, and while I didn’t get enough hands-on time to see how well the UP Move tracks, if it can maintain the same level of general tracking quality, it could well be the bargain tracker to buy.
The premium star of the show is the UP3, which we won’t see in Australia until “later this summer”. I pressed Jorgen Nordin on what that precisely meant, but he wasn’t able to supply more detail than that. At a guess, I suspect that means we won’t see it in calendar 2014.
The UP3 looks like a slightly thicker version of the Up 24, and what it brings to the market is a range of different sensors that fit around the curve of its band. It tracks activity and sleep, as you’d expect, but also skin and ambient temperature, and bioimpedance to to capture your ongoing heart rate. It’ll automatically detect certain types of workouts as you’re doing them, and provide more in-depth detail on sleep patterns, including tracking REM sleep.
According to Jorgen Nordin, the plan is to upgrade the UP3 via firmware upgrades to deliver other tracking metrics related to overall health over time. Jawbone’s API for UP is quite open, so there’s the possibility to link it in to other health tracking applications, although Nordin was at some pains to point out that it’s not a medical-grade tracking device, merely an indicative one.
One of the more interesting departures for the UP3 is that where the UP24 and standard UP — which will remain available for sale, according to Nordin — are wrap around bands, the UP3’s sensor design requires more direct skin contact, which means it comes with a clasp band. As a result, it’ll sell in only one size, with a clasp that was claimed to be patented. Patented it might be, but there’s a definite learning curve to this one.
My own early attempts to place the UP3 on weren’t entirely successful, so hopefully it’ll be something that becomes easier with time. It certainly appeared to be comfortable to wear, which is a must for a device that you’re more or less never meant to take off.
It’s a fascinating time in wearables right now, with Microsoft’s recently announced Microsoft Band also delving into multi-tracking, and plenty of budget offerings to assess as well; right now I’m in the middle of testing out Striiv’s budget bands, and as I write this, Magellan’s Echo Fit watch has also landed on my desk. Or in other words, you’ve got plenty of choices, and Jawbone’s just added to that list.