The Jawbone Up is the nerds jewelry. It doesn’t tell time, and it doesn’t even have a display like a Nike Fuel. Techies like me spot them across the room, and non-techies stop me to ask regularly.
I received a Nike Fuel as a birthday gift, and as cool as it was, the privacy policy was totally unacceptable to me. I clicked “do not accept” and a window popped up to return the Nike Fuel.
After reading the Jawbone privacy policy, I decided to get the Jawbone Up instead. The idea of tracking activity smarter just makes sense when you are trying to get in better shape or lose weight.
The Nike Fuel is a more comfortable design and is less bulky, but after living with a Jawbone Up on my wrist nearly 24x7 for a week, I guess I am getting used to it. I have also learned a lot of cool tricks and found a few annoyances.
On the annoyance side, you have to tell it what you are doing all the time. Nike Fuel owners feel free to chime in here if it is the same or smarter. For instance, I really like the idea that the Jawbone Up monitors my sleep patterns and makes sure I wake from a light sleep rather than a deep sleep. The problem is I forgot to tell it I went to sleep last night, somehow it should know.
I also have been watching how activities are logged. If I ride my bike for an hour and forget to set it into “stopwatch” mode, I’ll get some crazy number of steps added to my day which I haven’t figured out how to edit and change into bike riding. Even flying airplanes, I get credit for some steps. I plugged in the Up to sync before the flight moved and again when we landed. I did 456 steps according to the Jawbone Up. The reality was I didn't move my butt out of the seat at all for over three hours. I expected the "idle" alert to go off.
If I put the Jawbone Up in stopwatch mode by pushing the button once and then holding it in on a second push until it buzzes allows me to log all kinds of land based activity. It would be nice if I could swim with it.
My favorite feature on the Jawbone Up is “power nap”. I had about a two hour break today, and only slept four hours last night due to my crazy life. I found a nice reclining chair, put in earplugs, and 23 minutes later my power nap was over. I didn’t feel like I got all of my sleep but I did feel notably better. Normally I would have been afraid to wear earplugs because I have been known to crash so hard that I don’t hear dogs barking or the alarm going off and have missed important appointments due to it.
Fully reclined and totally unaware of the world around me, I felt a gentle buzz on my arm and just woke up nice and easy. The power nap feature is reason enough to own a Jawbone Up for me with my crazy life.
The only other real annoyance, and it could be that I have a bad one, is the battery life. My Jawbone Up, never turns green after charging for well over two hours. The manual online says a full charge should take about 80 minutes. My wife’s Jawbone Up turned green after just 60 minutes on the initial charge and 70 minutes the second time and her battery has also lasted the advertised 10 days. My Jawbone Up is only going about five days between charges. Maybe I’ll call Jawbone about a replacement, but not until after I take another little power nap.
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Thank you for your insights.