Jawbone Announces Up3, Up Move Fitness Trackers
The most stylish line of fitness trackers is getting an update, just in time for the holidays. Jawbone today (Nov. 5) announced the arrival of its advanced Up3 wristband, featuring a slew of new sensors, including a resting-heart-rate monitor, and the Up Move, a $50 fitness tracker that can be clipped to your clothing or worn in a wristband.
MORE: Best Fitness Trackers 2014
Jawbone's Up3 looks slightly different from the popular Up24 band, while retaining the same Yves Behar design. Coming in silver and black, the water-resistant band has either a quilted pattern on the top or a ribbed design mimicking the Up24's style. Inside the band is a new tri-axis group of monitors, including an accelerometer, bioimpedance sensor and skin and ambient light sensors.
These new internals let the Up3 track resting heart rate, a feature that's becoming increasingly available and valued in fitness trackers and which the previous Up bands didn't have. Jawbone claims firmware updates in the future will let these sensors capture even more health data.
Like the Up24, the Up3 monitors you while you're catching zzz's, tracking REM sleep in addition to Light and Deep sleep. But perhaps the most important improvement to the Up3 is how it tracks fitness with new Advanced Activity monitoring and a feature called Smart Coach. The band is smart enough to know what kind of exercise you're doing, be it running, tennis, basketball and the like.
There are a few other fitness trackers that claim to do this, including the new Microsoft Band, but they tend to just stick to running- or cycling-based activities. We'd be interested in taking the Up3 onto a soccer field or into a gym weight room to see how well Smart Coach works.
Smart Coach builds on these advanced tracking capabilities by collecting them all in the Up App for iOS or Android and giving you personalized advice to help reach your goals faster. The more you wear the band, the more activities it tracks, and the more the band gets to know you, the more guidance Smart Coach will be able to provide.
Jawbone has always been a data-focused company, using numbers to help people improve overall health, so it's almost surprising that Jawbone waited so long to release a feature like Smart Coach. Data is the key to Smart Coach; in order to avoid a data-starved empty system such Microsoft's Health, Jawbone may have wanted to wait until it had the data, and a reliable means of collecting it, before promising advice.
Jawbone's other new fitness tracker, the Up Move, isn't a wristband by design, but it's flexible enough to be. The Up Move resembles a more modern version of the Fitbit One, with a clip to attach it to almost any location on your body. In certain ways, its design is remarkable — the button-like sensor has a discreet LED display that lights up when you press it to reveal your progress to reach your goals.
You can also press the sensor twice to show time, and three times to view your sleep from the night before. The sensor can be used in its clip or in an optional wristband that comes in a multitude of bright colors.
No doubt Jawbone made this $50 tracker to compete with the Misfit Flashes of the world. At this price, it's not as comprehensive a fitness tracker as the $180 Up3 wristband, but it does monitor steps, calories and sleep. Connecting the Up Move via Bluetooth to the Up App lets you log your daily diet and create activity goals. Up Move will also reap the benefits of the new Smart Coach feature, so you'll be able to get personalized advice from the tiny tracker as well.
The Up3 and the Up Move bands may be the newest additions to Jawbone's fitness tracker line, but it doesn't seem like the company will be getting rid of the other Up bands. Currently the original $80 Up band is still for sale on Jawbone's website, as is the $130 Up24, and if Jawbone keeps offering at least the Up24, it could have the most comprehensive line of fitness trackers available in terms of price.
No doubt, that will be enticing for holiday shoppers looking to get fit in the new year. The $180 Jawbone Up3 will be available before the end of the year, and the $50 Up Move will be available later in November.
Valentina Palladino is a senior writer for Tom's Guide. Follow her at @valentinalucia. Follow Tom's Guide at @tomsguide and on Facebook.
Copyright 2014 Toms Guides , a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
