Measuring Your Health With Jawbone’s Up

The Up band, made by Jawbone, is an electronic bracelet that helps you log your activities, eating and rest, and it can record an awful lot of data. But the more detailed the data you want, the more work you’ll have to do to get it.

Up, costing $130, is the technological cousin of devices like the Striiv, Fitbit, and Fit Link, among others, which range in list price from $70 to $150. The idea is that measuring your activities, what you eat and how much you sleep will help you develop a healthier lifestyle and stick to it.

The Up band is available in seven colors and is worn loosely on the wrist. Initially it got in the way when I typed, but I got used to sliding it up my sleeve at the keyboard.

It has one feature not found in the others mentioned above — a vibration motor. You can set the band to remind you with a vibration to get up and walk around if you’ve been at the desk too long. Or set it as an alarm to buzz you awake in the morning.

The food logging also worked quite well for me, The bar-code scanner correctly recorded all of the food I tried  — often not the case with other devices — but as with any food log, if you want precision, you have to type in every ingredient in a meal. It can take longer to enter what you ate than to eat it.

Also, as with all these kinds of devices, it can recognize and count your steps, but unlike some of the others, the Up band cannot tell the difference between walking, running or going up stairs. Exercise like bicycling or weight lifting has to be manually entered.

To monitor your sleep, you have to remember to press a button that sets the band to sleep mode; I sometimes forgot to do this. You switch back when you wake, although after 25 or so steps, Up will change to wake mode itself.

The social component lets you post selected statistics to Facebook and Twitter, or share privately with other Up users you pick. The camaraderie (or competition) is a big help in achieving a goal.

Plug the band into an iPhone with the Up app to see colorful charts of your progress, share results and see suggestions based on your performance. The band lasts about 10 days on a charge and can even be worn in the shower, though not while swimming.

The Up band is not really for the devoted athlete, and it’s not quite as simple as some other devices, but for the modestly active who would like to be more so, the Up band can keep track when you make tracks.

**Published in "THE NEW YORK TIMES"