Jawbone Up Move

With fitness trackers becoming almost commonplace, it was only a matter of time before brands started stripping down their offerings - and their prices - to make their gadgets more affordable.

Jawbone's Up Move is a great example of this. It offers activity and sleep tracking, as well as a smart coach, but it lacks a display and vibration alerts.

Unlike the Jawbone Up24, it is not worn like a wristwatch. The basic plastic unit is a round piece which is as wide, and slightly thicker than a stack of three $1 coins.

Minus a display, the front has a clickable face plate which gives basic LED notifications. If you have set a walking goal, pressing the plate once will trigger a series of LED lights that flash along the circumference.

The progress of the lights mirrors your progress towards your goal.

Press the plate twice and two LED lights will flash at the periphery of the "clock" face, one to indicate the hour and the other to reflect the minutes. It may not tell the exact time, but it offers a decent approximation.

Not having a screen is not a big deal, as many of its functions lie in the Jawbone Up app.

Once the app is installed, users can use it to track their activities, set goals and look at weekly or monthly activity and sleep patterns.

The app can also be linked to other apps, for further tracking features. Pair it with the RunKeeper app to link exercise activities with the Up app. Connect it to a food-related app and the device will remind you about healthy eating.

When it comes to tracking movements, the steps listed on the Up app match those of the Fitbit Charge and the Xiaomi Mi Band, and the difference was no more than 50 steps.

Sleep tracking is not automatic, so you need to set the starting and ending times every night and morning. You can do this with the Up app, or with one long press of the device's face itself.

However, at times, the sleep tracking shuts down inexplicably and that night's sleep would go unrecorded.

Now, you can manually key in the hours slept, but without the tracking feature switched on, you will not know if you were in a light or deep sleep. To get this information, you need to wear the device, which monitors your body movements during the night.

The Up Move ships only with a small rubber grip which you fix to your shirt or pants.

To wear it on the wrist, you need to have the wristband, but alas, this accessory is not available for the Singapore market.

At other times, the device simply stopped syncing with my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and would not pair with the phone unless I restarted it.

The device uses a CR 2032 battery, which can last up to four months.

- The Up Move is a cheap way to get into the wearable movement, but its small size and the fact that there is no wristband makes this easy to lose.

sherwinl@sph.com.sg

TECH SPECS

Price: $88

Features: Bluetooth, accelerometer

RATING

Design: 2/5

Performance: 3/5

Value for money: 3/5

Battery life: 5/5

Overall: 3/5

This article was first published on Feb 11, 2015.
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