A better way to 'watch' your health

EFFORTLESSLY WORN on the wrist around the clock, the Jawbone UP3 is an advanced activity tracker to help you stay fit and healthy. It’s a tiny 220x12.2x3mm and 29 grams and wearable in the shower.

The strap is medical-grade rubber, non-allergenic, and the case is anodised aluminium case, also safe with its minuscule fraction of nickel. The 38mAh lithium-ion battery can last up to seven days.

The UP3 is more advanced than Jawbone’s previous activity trackers thanks to bio-impedance sensors that monitor the heart rate, respiration and galvanic skin response. 

Unlike other heart-rate monitors, it doesn’t take measurements after exercise, only at rest, the reason being that that’s a better starting point for gauging your heart’s health, eliminating external influences like caffeine consumption, stress and movement.

The prestigious Mayo Clinic in the US says it’s best for adults to have a resting heart rate of 60 to 100 beats per minute (bpm), but your numbers will vary according to lifestyle and genetics. Generally, though, the lower the resting heart rate, the healthier you are. When I was testing the device, my resting heart rate was 53bpm the first night, 56 the second, 59 the third and 52 the fourth, maybe a little too low according to the Mayo!

The UP3 uses Jawbone’s Smart Coach service to gradually ascertain what your resting heart rate is and set targets to improve your health. The bio-impedance sensors assess the rate and measure your skin tissue’s resistance to tiny electric currents, which indicates a wide range of physiological signals.

There are three facets to the UP3 – the wristband, the UP app for your smartphone and the UP cloud service that records your activities and progress and provides Smart Coach with tips to improve your health.

You download and install the app and use it to link to the UP3. You need to create a UP account to use the Jawbone online service. Then the UP3 will track your activities and upload the data to the UP cloud and fetch advice from the Smart Coach.

The UP3 band uses a precision motion sensor and clever algorithms to track and quantify your activities, distance, calories, active time and idle time. The app then calculates calories burned based on your age, gender, height and weight, along with activity intensity and duration.

The UP3 also tracks your sleep patterns, from light to deep sleep and even rapid eye movement while you’re dreaming, with the results ready in detail by morning. It clocked the time I went to bed and rose the next day. You can also enter and exit sleep mode manually by tapping the band.

There is no display and no buttons to press – you just tap it. The three LEDs light up blue for sleep mode, orange for activity tracking and white for notifications. The information is designed be read with the app on your phone, and the app is also for logging your meals and checking how many calories you’ve consumed and burned off. 

Most food packaging now has a barcode indicating whether the contents meet health standards as well as calorie data, and the app can scan this or take a photo of your meal, in which case you enter the calorie data manually.

The Smart Coach is amazing, giving you motivation and personalised insights to help you reach your goals.

The idea is to keep you active nearly all the time, based on studies showing that the active body produces enzymes to burn off excess calories. The UP3’s Idle Alert function gives you a gentle buzz if you stay inactive for 15 minutes, prodding you to get up and walk around for at least a few minutes.

The app and wristband can also be set to wake you up using the Smart Alarm function.

If you get your exercise in ways other than walking, Stopwatch mode on the app and wristband will keep pace, whether you’re bicycling or doing yoga. Just key in the type of workout and the app will estimate the calories burned.

I mostly recorded 10,000-plus steps each day, and that included riding my bike almost six kilometres to my bus stop and walking up and down 31 floors to The Nation office. More active people could easily double the number of steps per day.

Another nice feature is that the server will email you a weekly wrap-up of key statistics so that you can keep trying to improve your performance.

The Jawbone UP3 is available in silver or black for Bt7,990.

 

Key Specs

 

- Strap: Medical-grade |hypoallergenic TPU rubber

- Casing: Anodised aluminium with less than 0.5 per cent nickel

- Sensing electrodes: Titanium nitrate-coated stainless steel

- Battery: Rechargeable lithium-ion polymer, 38mAh 

- Battery life: Up to seven days

- Charge time: Approximately 60 minutes via magnetic USB charging cable

- Sensor and interface: Bluetooth 4.0 BLE; Tri-axis accelerometer; bio-impedance: heart rate, respiration, galvanic skin response; skin temperature; ambient temperature

- Three LEDs: Blue for sleep, orange for activity, white for notifications

- Size: 220x12.2x3-9.3mm

- Weight: 29g

- In the box: UP3 band, |quick-start guide, |USB charging cable