Jawbone UP Review | Hacker News Reader

Jawbone UP Review

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For a slightly cheaper approach (assuming you already have an iPhone): I have been successfully and pleasantly using "Lose It!" [1] to track all of my food and exercise for about five months now. So far I've lost 20 lbs and 2% body fat. For sleep tracking, I am using Sleep Cycle [2] to measure sleep hours and (most importantly to me) wake me up at a good time. Nike+ [3] on my iPhone tracks my running times, route, distance, etc. Total cost $2.98 (plus an iPhone of course).

I've been amazed at how easy it's been to get into reasonable shape by changing only one thing: consistently collecting the right data.

[1] http://www.loseit.com/

[2] http://mdlabs.se/sleepcycle/

[3] http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nike-gps/id387771637?mt=8

Will Sleep cycle pick up my partners movements and wake me up at an inopportune time?

I used it, and I just kept it on my side of the bed, it worked fine. I guess it depends on your mattress, but unless your partner is shifting around enough to wake you I'd say it'd be fine.

I've never had that problem, though I do have a memory-foam mattress. Sleep Cycle has always worked exactly as advertised for me.

Excellent suggestions. I had assumed that Nike+ still required you to have Nike+ shoes, but apparently, nowadays it works with the iPhone's GPS. Downloading it now.

You can buy a pouch to hold the sensor onto non-Nike shoes. They usually are no more than a couple bucks. I'm sure there are hacks out there too.

This device looks great! The software looks like it could use some work, though. Does anyone know if the data is exportable?

From what I have seen thus far there is no export capability for the data. There's an outstanding question on the jawbone forums with no response http://forums.jawbone.com/t5/Product-Support/Can-we-export-o...

I'm also eager to learn the answer to this, or what kind of options there are to access the data programmatically.

(The answer is relevant to my own startup, http://beeminder.com which is a goal-tracking and anti-akrasia service -- you pledge money to force yourself to keep your data points on a "yellow brick road" to your goal. It works especially well when you can automate the data collection with devices like this.)

Do your users actually pay you $5 for every time they leave their 'yellow zone'? I'd be much more inclined to do this if it were a much smaller amount of money and donated to a charity of my choice instead

They totally do! (Ok, our revenue is just a trickle -- http://beeminder.com/meta/paid -- but it seems like a steady trickle since launching so we're feeling very hopeful!)

We've had a lot of discussions -- for example, http://lesswrong.com/lw/7z1/antiakrasia_tool_like_stickkcom_... -- about the charity question. We do hope to offer that at some point but we're not considering it a core feature just yet.

Here's something from our FAQ about this:

Q: You make money from people failing at their goals?

A: Yes, but we make you fail less! We force you to toe the line at least for a while so that when/if you do fall off your yellow brick road then the motivation it provided up until that point still seems worth it. Everything we've worked on in building Beeminder has been with the objective of making people succeed and we'd have to be very myopic for it to be otherwise.

It's very important to us that no one ever lose on a technicality. We want to make money by making you more awesome, and we're convinced that's what's happening. But don't take our word for it. Try it and see. The first attempt is free: http://beeminder.com/money

I know the FitBit has a dedicated charger that you have to use every few days to recharge the device...what about this? Or is it like those watches that can power themselves through kinetic motion?

Charges via USB cable: http://eu.jawbone.com/epages/Jawbone.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=Ca...

What's stopping these things from including a heart rate monitor as well? Do we just not have the sensors, or are they just not as cheap as a simple accelerometer? I'd be much more interested in the exercise tracking if it did something besides "steps". Most devices have the same issue as far as I know. If I'm doing an oly lifting workout I don't do very many steps but I sure do a lot of work. I'd love to be able to quantify that.

This looks very interesting. I been wanting something like this forever. After watching the way the WakeMate has evolved (or not), I might be inclined to try this.

Thanks for this review!

I love the idea, but think I will stick with the FitBit, simply because I hate wearing anything around my wrists. Especially since I am typing at a keyboard so much of the day.

I'd love to find something that could be worn as a necklace (even in the shower). My partner had a fitbit that died when it ended up going through the laundry.

I'm curious: there are at least 3 or 4 such products (Up, WakeMate, etc.) ... do any of them have patents?

Only the WakeMate and all other non-UP devices are covered by patents. Evil, baby-raping patents.

The good people at Jawbone respect the integrity of babies' orifices, and would never dare to file a patent.

How effective is its alarm?

I got mine yesterday and used it last night for the first time as an alarm. It worked as advertised and since it's around the wrist it's really effective at waking you up.

How does the sleep tracking actually work? How can I verify the measurements?

I obviously can't say for sure how it works as I'm just an end user, but I can say you tell the device you are going to sleep and when you wake up. In between, it is obviously sensing your movement using the accelerometer, etc. My guess would be if you fidget around while you sleep this would be considered a light sleep.

I would suspect this to be true- Fitbit works in the same way. Sleep is an activity like any other so periods of movement above the threshold are seen as interruptions.

Holy bright yellow background, batman!

My eyes literally hurt now.

I was very interested in the article but inverse color mode just made it worse so I had to open up Chrome's inspector and change the CSS before I continued reading.

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