The first wristband in 2011, while innovative, was a disaster. Bracelets bricked and there were reported incidents of batteries failing to recharge. It led to recalls and Jawbone returned to the drawing board.
Now Jawbone has upped-the-ante with version 2 of the Up, with a water-resistant wristband I have been trialling -- even showering with -- without technical glitches so far.
The revamped Up goes on sale here late this month in three sizes and eight colours -- four colours will be available initially. But now it has to compete with rival devices such as the Fitbit Ultra, Nike+ FuelBand, and Basis Fitness Watch. It's a crowded market compared to 2011.
The wristband doesn't fasten around your arm, rather the two ends overlap, but it feels light, secure and comfortable.
I feel something is missing when not wearing it -- as one does a wristwatch.
It looks low-tech but don't be deceived. Inside there's a dual-motion sensor measuring all your movements, even when asleep, a vibrating motor for notifications, two small LED lights and an audio plug for syncing with the Up app, which is available for iOS and Android devices. There's no Bluetooth or WiFi syncing.
The audio plug has a second purpose: charging. You plug it into a supplied attachment that in turn plugs into a USB port.
Without Bluetooth and WiFi, battery life is better than on rivals devices -- some 10 days on one charge, and I am on track to achieve this.
So does the Up measure up?
In a nutshell, the Up has a few killer features that rivals don't have; but it lacks others. It's a matter of taste to choose what you want to buy. Using its motion sensor, the Up measures minute by minute how many steps you take and how much energy (kilojoules/calories) you burn, and your active rest time for each day.
You get absolutely none of this information from the wristband itself; it's detailed in the app. It's added to your profile whenever you sync the Up with your smart device. Syncing is a matter of firing up the app and plugging it into the audio socket. It's simple. Jawbone recommends you do this twice daily.
Some users and reviewers bemoan the fact the Up offers no wristband readout and point to the Nike+ Fuelband that does. Frankly, it doesn't worry me as I don't want instant feedback and gratification.
To me the Up offers data that can be used strategically to improve physical wellbeing, which you glean from studying the app when you have time.
Nor does the Up have inbuilt GPS, so there's no recording of exactly where you are going. It simply measures steps based on body movements. There's a calibration menu in the app if you think step measurements are out of kilter.
The Up offers a great array of data about sleeping, provided you remember to place your wristband in night mode before nodding off.
It will record how long you take to get to sleep, hours of deep sleep and light sleep, the number of times you wake, and the time you spend in bed awake -- gleaned using a technique called Actigraphy.
Do I trust the Up's motion sensing to offer accurate sleeping data? Short of asking my wife to sit beside me all night with a stop watch, I don't know.
But the Up should pick up important trends such as waking up an excessive number of times each night, a sign of potentially lethal sleep apnoea.
The Up has a couple of killer features I love. One is its ability to wake you by quietly vibrating on your arm. Your partner doesn't have to hear your alarm ring out again. You set the time with the Up plugged into your phone.
Even better, you can give the Up a window of time to wake you. It will work out the best time to wake you based on your sleep rhythms -- ie when you are in a light sleep.
For example, I can tell the Up to wake me by 6.30am with a 20-minute window, so I may be woken anytime from 6.10am onward depending on my state of sleep.
If you are into power napping or siestas, the Up can recommend an optimal time for a snooze based on sleeping patterns. You tell it to start the power nap, and it will wake a reinvigorated you.
Further, if you're a desk jockey at work, you can set a time interval, say one hour, at which the Up will buzz you to get up and have a walk around the office. On international flights, the Up can remind you to walk around at predefined intervals, to help you avoid problems such as deep vein thrombosis.
The wristband records health information that you retrieve through the Jawbone Up app.
The app is a hub of statistics about your wellbeing and consists of a feed screen, which each day summarises sleeping, movement, mood and eating habits.
There are two main submenus. The left-side menu offers statistics and trends, and should you want to, you can set up the app to share your life data with fellow Up users located in your contacts, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
There are privacy settings to determine what you share. For example, you may be happy to share information about steps and workouts but against disclosing sleeping habits.
You can manually enter a description of your mood. That may seem silly, but over time you might discover a correlation between your mood, exercise levels and sleeping pattern.
The system falls down when it comes to monitoring kilojoule/calorie intake. Entering this is an entirely manual task and involves either scanning bar codes, choosing predetermined food items or taking photos of your meals. Users online complain about how tedious this is.
That's not the direct fault of Jawbone. Recording eating habits quantitatively is a difficult process at any time, as no two versions of a meal are the same, have the same condiments, or exactly the same portion size.
Jawbone would be better off allowing users to enter their calories using highly regarded dedicated calorie-counting apps such as MyFitnessPal, which has a database of 2 million foods, and syncing its energy consumption data into the Jawbone app. It's what Fitbit does.
Are there glaring omissions in the Up? There's no heart-rate monitor as with the Basis Fitness Watch, and some users may see a lack of WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity as a deal breaker.
I personally prefer the longer battery life that a lack of this connectivity brings. Others wanting instant feedback may lament the absence of a read-out on the wristband.
It would be great if the Up app was capable of adjusting your goals based on past performance as the Basis Fitness Watch does.
And the Jawbone Up is relatively expensive -- $149.99 in Australia from Apple, Telstra and Optus.
Those issues aside, the Up on my wrist is proving a great companion and reminder of the daily need to take care of one's health.
