A few weeks with the Jawbone UP

I didn’t wear the Jawbone UP today. Nor did I wear it last night. And I’m pretty bummed about that trend.

If you weren’t aware, the Jawbone UP is a device you wear on your wrist that tracks your activity throughout the day and your sleep during the night. It’s very cool. It will also wake you at the optimal time by slowly vibrating your wrist (probably my favorite feature). And it gives you graphs like this:

So, why am I not wearing it after keeping it on for a solid two weeks?

First, I’m not a “bracelet” kinda guy, let’s start with that. I don’t wear a watch or a Lance Armstrong band, nothing like that. I don’t have anything against it, but it just feels odd to me. So keep that in mind as there’s a chance this experiment was doomed from the beginning.

The daily activity monitor wasn’t really telling me much. Or, better put, it wasn’t changing my behavior. When I first got it, I was excited to go on a walk during work and see how the graph would spike during that time. But that novelty quickly wore off and I found myself not really caring if the graph changed throughout the day. I just wasn’t doing anything with that data.

It’s difficult to wear with long sleeve shirts and/or a jacket. It snags all the time, which is annoying.

So with me not caring too much about the day-time data and it snagging a lot on my clothes, I decided I didn’t need to wear it during the day.

On the contrary, I do intend to wear it when I sleep and when I work out. And I think for the right person who is super into fitness and knowing how active they are during the day, it could be a great device.

Actually, it IS a great device. I think its fantastic. I just don’t think I’ll be wearing it during the day much. Not sure if that helps any of you that are on the fence, but thought it was time I shared my two cents on the UP.