(Image: Jawbone)
BY ADAM FALK
ANCHOR JIM FLINK
Start looking to your wrist for – not the time – your health. Jawbone, the company commonly associated with Bluetooth headsets, has created a new health monitoring device.
The wristband, called Up, keeps track of your body’s vitals as your wearing it. It monitors your sleeping patterns, tracks your exercise patterns, and can even keep keep tabs on your diet. You can see your stats via iPhone or web app. But as blogger for Fast Company says...
(Video: Jawbone)
“The cleverest features, however, are a bit more subtle. The UP isn't meant to be a passive health-monitoring device … Instead, it's meant to constantly nudge you into better behavior. For example, you can set the wristband to vibrate when you've been sedentary for too long.”
Although the device doesn’t have a clock face, it has an alarm clock that can wake wearers up with vibration instead of noise. But as Mashable reports, it’s not solo features that will give the band staying-power.
“Jawbone’s real intention is that you’ll form social groups around the Up. The app is very much built around the concept of nudging and encouraging your friends and families in goals and mini-challenges. Surprisingly, the company has not integrated the app with Facebook and Twitter just yet...”
That’s not all the smarter, Livestong look-alike is missing. CNET says...
“Curiously, the wristband does not use Bluetooth (like Jawbone's other products) to communicate with the iPhone. Instead, you sync the two devices by removing the plug cap on the wristband and plugging the jack into the iPhone's headphone port.”
The wristband is shock-resistant, water-resistant, sweat-proof and made of medical-grade, hypo-allergenic rubber. If you keep it on. But a Wired blogger writes it’s more than just the 10-day battery life that will keep Up on wrists...
“It’s also easy on the eyes … Instead of including a cumbersome LCD screen or an uncomfortable velcro strap, Up’s unadorned, minimalist aesthetic cuts down on bulk and conspicuousness. It’s a health device you actually won’t hate to wear.”
Up costs $100 and is available now on Jawbone’s website or starting Sunday at Apple, Target, Best Buy and AT&T retailers. The band comes in three sizes and seven different colors in case you -- you know -- want it to match your running shoes.
Transcript by Newsy.
