The Jawbone Up, what’s it good for? Enhancing one’s life!

The new ‘Up’ device from Jawbone. A stylish bracelet to make us all healthier, has serious pros and cons. Both the bracelet and the free included iPhone app.

Cons first, let’s get those out of the way:

It is not a precision work out tracking device, the pedometer function is not very accurate and it only knows foot steps. You really need to have the Up app on your iPhone and with you in the geo tracking mode to get much usable information.

It is not wireless, so you have to plug it into your iPhone’s audio jack port to move what data the ‘Up’ collects to the iPhone app… this is also listed as a ‘Pro’ below.

There seems to be a high level of manufacturing defects, several in the office have requests into Jawbone for return/exchange. Now what we have seen with our other Jawbone hardware, surprising.

The system is not designed to manage your dieting with calorie counting… another item that is a ‘Pro’ below.

That’s about it… it looks cool, fits well, and will actually change you life if you use it.

Now, to the ‘Pro’ items:

The quality sleep feature works very well to record your sleep via your movements. There are several devices on the market to report on your wake/sleep/deep sleep patterns, but they are generally troubled by a beg with multiple people in it. The ‘Up’ is on your wrist to it measures your sleep. Since there is no heart rate monitoring, it is truly watching your movements. I did have to learn that if you get up and walk the dog for a half hour in the middle of the night, the ‘Up’ thinks your awake for the day and stops recording. I just turn off the sleep mode, walk the dog, and turn the sleep mode back on when I get under the covers again. The ‘smart’ wake feature doesn’t watch for you to get the maximum ‘needed’ sleep. Instead, it has you set a half hour zone you want to be woken up, the band vibrates during that half hour when your partial awake is at it’s best time. This way your not jolted out of a deep sleep.

A simple feature that has your quality of life in it’s best interest is the vibrate when motionless for too long during the day. Set a length of time between moving and the Up will buzz you if you have been sitting at the keyboard too long. Get up, stretch, walk around…

The ‘Up’ has to be plugged into the iPhone audio jack to move the data the armband has collected into the iPhone’s app. While bluetooth would be nice, a constant connection would really put a strain on the armband’s battery. The action of removing the band and plugging it in is a commitment. It represents taking a part in being responsible for your health. That said, can you image a time in the future where the band is talking to the iPhone wirelessly. It would become one with your day, constantly reporting as you move through your day… sure hope there are good privacy settings when we get there.

The iPhone app isn’t laid out the way you may find easy to work with. Many things are several clicks deep. Others don’t perform quite as you would expect. Those are tunable items that Jawbone can get right as users report how the interact with the system.

One item within the iPhone app is the meals tracking that needs clarification. It isn’t a calorie counter where you look up your food items and add up your day’s intake. It is more about the action of logging how much you ate. It is fashionable thinking right now that loosing weight and better eating is about the action of recording what you ate. It isn’t about setting a limit to how many numbers add up, rather about recognizing what your eating by recording it. A item I liked is that a while after you eat, the iPhone app asks how you feel. Another physiological feature that helps you think about if you ate too much or the right thing.

So, to wrap up… the current Jawbone Up device is a stepping to future devices. It doesn’t really need to be ‘better’ right now to make a difference in your life. It isn’t a precision recording device, it is a lifestyle resetting device though. It will get more interactive in the future, but everything does… the next version is always better. Do you put your health on hold till then?

 

The $15 iPhone 4 and 4s Macro Lens

When it comes time to take a picture of something small or you need to get really close to the object, you really need a Macro Lens. There are a variety of options on the market. Most look like little funnels that are held onto your iPhone 4 with a stick on metal ring and a magnet inside of the lens. I had an issue with three versions of these on the market where the ring blocked the iPhone’s flash. While I don’t use the flash much of ever for photography, I do use it as a flashlight every night for the last mile to the bedroom. Yea, it’s the little things in life.

While doing a project to make a small plastic object over on Shapeways, I happened upon this offering. It is the plastic bit that slides over the corner of your iPhone’s body. Very easy to go on/off and it fits in my pocket. The person who is offering this $11 lens holder points to Surplus Shed and the part number to buy the $4 lens. People are posting up other lenses that also fit in holder. Of course, the holder is precision built so it won’t work if you have a case on your iPhone.

 

From the developer:

“Print this model and then buy the glass lens for $4 from Surplus Shed (http://www.surplusshed.com/). The Surplus Shed part number is L4471. The lens fits in a recess in the model and is held in place with a few tiny drops of Superglue. If you get any glue on the lens it can cleaned off with nail polish remover or acetone. The lens is plano-convex (one side is flat). When inserted in the holder, the flat side of the lens faces the phone.”

Where they say ‘print’, they are talking about ordering the item to be 3D printed by Shapeways.

 

2011 iPhone Shopping Discounts App of the Year

To be clear… this is ‘my chosen’ iPhone Shopping app of the year. Last year, the great new iPhone shopping app was on that allowed us to take a picture of a cover of a box and it would tell us what we could buy the item for online and at other stores.

This year, the app is one that will tell us not only if the item is available someplace else for less. It will also say if the item is planned to go on sale someplace else. Like a little crystal ball in our pocket, the decide.com app accepts photos of items or barcodes then responds with a possible great future of savings.

The decide.com app has a full database of hundreds of thousands of electronic devices, most with technical information too… helps if you are gift buying and don’t know the difference between models.

 

Winterizing the iPhone 4 and 4s – Black Friday specials

I was going to do a post next week about ‘winterizing’ my iPhone 4s like I did last year, a bit of a reminder for all. Then I received a notice from Griffin that they had iPhone specials for Black Friday so I thought I would get this out in case any of the items I mentioned are on sale.

First, encasing the iPhone4/4s. I’m still waiting on two new iPhone cases that are claiming to be ‘super’ protection for the devices, when they show I will review. For now though, it’s back to the Griffin Survivor that saved me several times last year. I did a full review before, outlining a indoor stairs toss, er… test, I did (When you drop your iPhone4, more bounces is a good thing). Beyond that test, the Survivor case saved my iPhone from two falls when getting out of the car and a grocery store hop when I was surprised by a large crowd going for the same item I was.

 

 

The deal from Griffin (I tried the link now and it says it won’t be active till Friday):Save up to 80% on essentials for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch at GriffinTechnology.com. Shop Now!

New for me is the aGlove. These gloves are pretty thin but still doing a good job of keeping the hands warm. Being washable was a nice treat. Most important is that the aGlove does as they claim, you really can leave the gloves on and the iPhone in the Survivor case and still use the finger navigation.

 

Friends and family join their pictures together, finally done right for the iPhone

While there are many social ways of sharing our iPhone photos, they are just ours. When we go to a family event or concert, why do we have to put our pictures separately? there are some fun Geo apps but they don’t support everyone at an event joining their pictures with other people. Most often, the answer is to post your pictures to Twitter and hashtag them so people can search to find… but there isn’t a single view of all of the pictures.

OK… that is the problem, and until today there wasn’t have a real solution. Today, as I head out to a family get together and then a parade to be enjoyed by thousands, Jarvus is here to save the day!

I didn’t see the TV interviews the app mentions, but a quick search showed the app is getting some press. Inside of Jarvus, you create an ‘event’ and start adding pictures to it.

Find friends from a variety of options and let them view your event photos. Those same ‘new’ friends can be allowed to add their snap shots to your Jarvus events too! Now, you can have everyone’s perspective in a single spot! I’ll follow up after this holiday weekend to let you know how it worked out for the many events photo grouping… it will be fun to see what I didn’t see from where I was standing without having to search all over the net.