Up by Jawbone

We posted the Jawbone Up over a year ago, however, do to some unforeseen quality control issues in the production phase, Jawbone was forced to recall the product no-questions-asked and issue refunds. However, instead of coming up with a quick fix and releasing an inferior product, Jawbone took their sweet-ass time, and it has taken until now to finally make their comeback. We've have been enticed by competitors like the Nike Fit Band, but opted to wait with baited breath until the Up came back. In short, we are happy that we did. If uninitiated with the personal health monitor, let us give you a guided tour. The Up tracks the amount of sleep you get, including amount of both REM sleep and light sleep; has an internal vibrating alarm that you can set to gently vibrate you awake in the morning, which operates in a window of time to make sure it doesn't wake you out of REM sleep; tracks the amount of steps you take in a day; tracks your exercise patterns; tracks you diet through user input; reminds you to get up and move around if you've been too sedentary...it really goes on and on. So, after a couple of days of use, here is what we learned: we got adequate sleep last night, with 4 hours being light and 4 hours 13 minutes REM sleep; we set our daily goal for steps at 10000, and we exceeded that today, combined with our gym workout we burned a total of 2762 calories, which is good, as keeping track of what we ate today we only ingested 2373 calories (a recipe for weight-loss). From there it broke down the quality of our diet, and we learned that we had a little too much sugar, and way too much sodium, something that we did not really know and now plan to fix. Over time, the Up enlightens you to patterns, some good and some bad, so you can adapt your life accordingly and make the necessary changes. Really, it is forcing you to think about how much energy you intake, how much you burn, how active you are, and how much rest you are getting...it just makes you far more engaged in your daily fitness, which is something that all busy people could use. So far, we are loving it, as we made better choices today diet and exercise-wise in an effort to hot our goals. It interfaces with your iPhone through a free app and gives you some very thorough information through a slick interface. You can see and learn more here.