UP By Jawbone Review

I’ve been using the UP band by Jawbone for the last couple of months and I’m finally ready to fill you in! I’ve been getting a lot of questions (IRL and on the blog) about it and I’ll start by saying I DO recommend it. For someone of my activity level, I don’t think it will change your life, but I do think it’s fun to track your movement and it does lead to small positive changes in behavior. However, I do think this could make a big impact for less active people; it really does encourage more sleep and more movement.

Want more? Here you go!

What it does: Set your sleep and steps goal, wear the bracelet and it will track your progress against your goals. There is also the option to enter your food intake. There is a barcode scanner or you can manually search for what you’re eating (anything with a barcode it will find and I’ve been impressed that it has MOST things I eat that don’t have a barcode).  You can have the bracelet vibrate to wake you up (less jarring than an alarm clock) and also you can set it to vibrate at certain intervals if you haven’t moved (mine vibrates every hour if I haven’t walked around). It gets you to step away from your desk whereas without the bracelet you might not realize you’ve been sitting for 4 hours at a time. To update your info on the app, you simply plug the band into your phone.

My Experience: I set my sleep goal at 8 hours and my steps goal at 14,000. As expected I rarely meet my sleep goal (I’m normally at about 60-75% of my goal, not great) and I almost always reach my step goal. I also input my workout, the intensity level and the length since it doesn’t pick up things like cycling and swimming, really only walking and running. Based on your height/weight/age/sex it gives you an approximate number of calories burned.

Wearing the bracelet really has encouraged me to walk more and to try to get more sleep. If you have friends that have an UP you can link profiles and view each other’s progress. I’m only linked to one friend (hi sara!) and it’s really fun (albeit a little creepy) to see what the other person is up to (a typical conversation of ours is as follows: Me to Sara: Omg you got so much sleep last night, I’m jealous! Sara to Me: You only slept for 5 hours last night, what is wrong with you!?)

Customer Service: So for the first couple of weeks I thought, ok this thing is kinda fun but doesn’t really impact my behavior. THEN, my UP broke! I’m not sure what I did to it but it started vibrating and not tracking my progress. Luckily, the folks at Jawbone are AMAZING. I can’t say enough about their customer service. They answered my email within an hour and after deciding my UP was in fact broken, they immediately sent me a replacement band, So easy and SO helpful!  I was band-less for a week and I couldn’t believe how much I missed it! I felt I slept less and walked less because I didn’t have anything holding me accountable. I’m so happy to have the UP back in my life and now I can truly say that I highly recommend it and I love it!

If I could change the UP… I wish it were waterproof (I’m always worried I’m going to wear it in the shower by accident plus I wish I could swim with it) and I also would like it to be Bluetooth and automatically update into the app as opposed to having to plug it in.

Accuracy: One last thing I’ve been asked a bunch is about its accuracy.  How accurate is it with your sleep patterns and steps? Honestly, I have no idea, I think it is pretty accurate although not perfect. Either way, I don’t think it matters. It’s helping you make healthier choices and if it’s not completely accurate that’s ok, it’s still encouraging you to move more and sleep more.

Have more questions about my experience with UP? Shoot me an email at ShapinUpFitness@gmail.com and I’d be happy to answer them!