Product Review: Jawbone UP24

Ok with a prompt and a push from my Golds Gym Bodypump class members today I’m going to review my Jawbone UP24 activity tracker that I’ve been using for the last 3 months. Kind of ironic as today was my 1,500,000th step! This was my birthday gift from Bob, that I asked for. I’ve used a bodymedia fit (upper arm band) and whilst great I just found I didn’t sync the band to the computer daily and honestly having an armband on 24/7 isn’t very inconspicuous. So I opted for the Jawbone. Now there are two types of Jawbone, the UP and the UP24. The difference is the UP24 syncs wireless via bluetooth to the phone app. That’s what I wanted. I want instant results. I want to see what sleep I got INSTANTLY not when I hook it all up to my phone via the headphone port. Sure the Up24 is more expensive ($149 vs $99) but honestly for me bluetooth is the way to go. I highly recommend it over the regular UP band. As you can see it’s a LOT less conspicuous than a huge armband!

The bands come in three sizes, I have small wrists and got the small, it fits perfectly. Bob has the large one. It’s rubber like band with metal ends. The “Jawbone” end pulls off and reveals the charging ‘plug’. The square end is for switching modes. If not for those metal ends it really looks like a bracelet.

The app is available for Android or iPhone and you simply connect it via bluetooth to your band, enter your personal details and then MOVE. Below are some of the screens available. From right to left:

Activity screen: You can add your specific activity like cycling, weights etc so the app can more accurately assess your calories and activity level.

Home screen: shoes sleep, activity and food tracking. The % is based on YOUR goals. Mine are set to the average of 7 1/2 hours sleep and 10,000 steps.

Sleep screen: Shoes your sleep and light vs deep sleep

As you can see in more detail the activity screen has little bars that go up/down depending on how much you move. Now whilst it’s not entirely an accurate calorie counter it IS a good indicator of movement and activity.  On the screen below you can see I added in 1 hour of weights (bodypump), and 30 minutes cross training (cxworx). You can also see there is a walk that with the dogs, indicated by the red bars. I didn’t need to input this as you can link up the app with other apps you use like nike plus, or runkeeper. Then when you open the app it will automatically sync with the wristband and partnered apps, so it pulls the data in automatically! Less work for me 😉

As you can see I’d burned 1700 calories total in 12 hours on this particular day. Longest active was 1 hour, inactive 1hr 39 minutes. Now whilst MOST days I move quite a lot sometimes I do get quiet days (Tuesdays) and this 10,000 step goal keeps me accountable, I will admit to doing a few minutes of running on the spot or jumping jacks late at night just to meet that 100% goal! lol!

Unfortunately whilst I’m doing great on the moving part my downfall is the sleep. Which is one reason I wanted this activity tracker. Whilst on this day I got over 8 hours of sleep this happens rarely! My usual is between 6-7 hours a night. Initially I started off with the goal of 8 hours but that was nigh impossible so I reduced my goal to 7 1/2 and I can make that 50% of the time. This is one area I have been working on though and seen an improvement.

One other thing I like is being able to track my foods. Whilst I don’t do this often I do like to input new meals I’ve made into the app to see the macro breakdown of protein, carbs and fats. The app has a database of foods, you can however also add your own manually. You can also scan the barcodes of foods rather than searching, which is more convenient IMO. This part of the app I use rarely, but like to occasionally to keep track of my sodium intake.

Whilst the food main page shows your total calories and macros if you click the individual meals you can see the per meal breakdown. I don’t care so much about sugar or calories, for me I focus on fats and sodium. One thing I wish the app had was the option to change these % as the unsaturated fat would get increased on mine  and the saturated fat would be lowered 😉 Also as a vegan I never eat cholesterol so that’s always 0%!

 

Battery life: I find 7 days is about the max it lasts between charges. Usually I just charge it up whilst I’m on my computer one afternoon. It only takes about 30-45 minutes for a full charge.

Durability: It isn’t water proof so no wearing it to swim in. But I’ve run with it, got it sweaty, biked, lifted weights etc and it’s fine.

Sleep Smart Alarm: One feature I LOVE is the wake up alarm. I used to use my iPhone as my alarm but now I use my UP24. It’s intuitive. Set the alarm for your time and it will wake you up with a gentle vibration around the time of your alarm (you get to choose the window of time). This is so you get woken in light sleep as opposed to deep sleep. Much better!

Wear: It’s recommended to wear on your non-dominant wrist. I wore it on my left (non-dominant) then switched to my right and there is a difference. More steps and movement for wearing on my right. Now I switch it up.

Activity Alert: This is another feature you turn on/off. When turned on after the specified period of inactivity the armband will buzz. This is great for those with desk jobs! Set it for every 15, 30 or 45 minutes and get up and walk around or do some squats, jumping jacks etc. For me, if I know I have a period of time on the computer doing college work for example I’ll set it for 30 minutes and then go reboot the laundry, get a drink, or do a chore from my daily list etc. It breaks up the study and gets me moving.

Speaking of which, my activity alert is buzzing, I should get up off here! Let me know in the comments below if you have any questions!