jawbone
Latest
One Chinese brand makes a quarter of the world's wearable devices
Which company do you think is the fast-rising upstart in the wearable world? Fitbit? Jawbone? None of the above, if you ask IDC. It estimates that China's Xiaomi claimed 24.6 percent of the wearable device market in the first quarter of 2015, which is no mean feat when the company didn't even start shipping its first wrist-worn gadget, the Mi Band, until the second half of last year. That still amounts to just 2.8 million devices, but it was enough to shrink the market share for virtually everyone else, including industry leader Fitbit as well as Garmin, Samsung and Jawbone. And Samsung is the only smartwatch maker on the list, we'd add. LG, Motorola, Pebble and other early entrants are lumped into the "others" group.
Jawbone's Up2 fitness tracker arrives in the UK for £90
Jawbone's delayed Up3 still isn't available in the UK, but it seems the company is quite content to push ahead with its cheaper Up2 instead. The wrist-worn health tracker is available now for £89.99 in-store from Currys, PC World, John Lewis and Selfridges. You'll also be able to order it online via Jawbone and Apple's online stores, and the company says it should soon be up for pre-order on Amazon. The Up2 retains Jawbone's sleek design aesthetic, but drops some of the more advanced features found in the Up3, such as heart rate and skin temperature monitoring. While useful, those metrics aren't essential to everyone and the Up2 does everything else you would expect from a fitness tracker -- recording steps, sleep and calories burned, as well as food logging, should you want a more complete picture inside the Smart Coach app. Given we weren't too impressed with the Up3, you might be better off with the Up2 or one of its competitors anyway.
Jawbone sues Fitbit for 'plundering' product information
Jawbone is suing its archrival, Fitbit, for "systematically plundering" confidential information. According to the complaint, Fitbit recruiters attempted to poach almost one-third of Jawbone's staff. Some of those employees left the company, but not before downloading "critical trade secrets" including business plans and product details. The accusation comes right on the heels of Fitbit's decision to go public. The company, which sold 10.9 million wearable devices last year, filed for an IPO of up to $100 million earlier this month.
Jawbone Up3 review: a feature-packed disappointment
Is there room for a $180 health band today that doesn't have a built-in display and is totally reliant on your smartphone? Jawbone's pitch for the Up3, its latest wrist-worn health tracker, is pretty much the same as its last few models. It's artfully crafted from the genius design mind of Yves Béhar, the company's chief creative officer. And it's packed full of sensors to track your every movement (this time it can even detect your heart rate!). But it's the middle of 2015 -- the Apple Watch is out; Android Wear is getting steadily better; and there are a slew of other fitness trackers on the market. Jawbone is also coming off of a lengthy delay that squashed what little momentum it had after the Up3's announcement. So, is the Up3 worth the hefty cost, even when it's facing much stiffer competition than ever before? Probably not -- especially after Jawbone just announced the $99 Up2, which has most of the features and design elements from the Up3 that really matter.
Jawbone's latest health bands: $99 Up2 & Up4 with AmEx payments
We're still waiting for Jawbone's long-delayed Up3 to start shipping next week, but that's not stopping it from debuting two new health bands today. The $99 Up2 (pictured above) sits between its $50 entry-level Up Move and the $179 Up3, and it includes pretty much all of the features from last year's Up24, just in a more stylish frame. The $199 Up4, on the other hand, is basically the same device as the Up3 with one big difference: NFC payments, courtesy of a partnership with American Express. It makes Jawbone the first company to include mobile payment capabilities inside of a pure fitness wearable. The Apple Watch also supports NFC payments with Apple Pay, but as a smartwatch, it's an entirely different category from the Up4. Jawbone's Up2 is available today at the company's store, Amazon, and Best Buy in black, with more colors to follow, while the Up4 is coming sometime this summer.
Jawbone and AmEx want you to pay for stuff with your fitness band
If you're looking to get a little more mileage out of that fitness tracker, Jawbone and American Express are about to lend a hand. The duo is teaming up to bring a payment feature to the former company's line of gadgets. Of course, Apple's new wearable sorts payments too, and now a similar function will be on an upcoming Jawbone device. This means that the Up3 that's set to ship next week won't help you pay for a burrito, and neither will it's predecessors. Instead, the collaboration with AmEx will arrive on wearable that we've yet to hear about, so it's unclear if it'll be another band or a smartwatch. If your go-to credit or debit card is Visa or MasterCard, there's no indication if Jawbone's mystery tech will handle payments from those either. However, when it does arrive, it'll wrangle those payments via NFC -- just like the Apple Watch.
Jawbone's Up3 finally ships on April 20th, but don't take it swimming
November 2014 almost seems like a lifetime ago and folks who've been itching for a Jawbone Up3 since it was announced that month would probably agree. There's good news, though: the wearable finally starts shipping come April 20th. So long as you're one of the folks who pre-ordered from the company website, that is. Jawbone vice president Travis Bogard says that the reason behind the Up3's delay has to do with its water resistance. Apparently, not every single unit met the 10-meter claims Jawbone promised and that didn't come out until ramping up production. Now they're "comparable to, and in line with" other sensors. All that to say, you can't swim while you're wearing one but it should be okay if you take it in the shower or are caught in an April rainstorm. If that lets the wind out of your sails, Bogard says that you can cancel your pre-order without penalty.
As Apple moves into fitness, rival wearables vanish from stores
Apple is pitching its first smartwatch as the ultimate health and fitness coach, so of course, it doesn't want to remind customers about the competition. According to Re/code, the company is no longer selling the Nike+ FuelBand and Jawbone Up, among other popular activity trackers, in its flagship retail stores across San Francisco, Palo Alto, Los Angeles and New York. As early as last October, Apple was planning to pull Fitbit hardware from its shelves ahead of the Apple Watch's launch. A cursory glance at the company's US online store shows that almost all of the wearable's competition has now been removed, save for Jawbone's Up Move clip-on pendant and Wahoo's TICKR fitness trackers.
My top five products of 2014: Mike Rose
It's been all apps, all the time around here as we wrap up our favorites of 2014. For a change of pace, I thought I'd pull together my favorite five products that don't necessarily require a visit to the App Store. Apple Pay & Touch ID (included with iPhone 6/6 Plus, coming for Watch). It doesn't feel good to skip an iPhone generation, as much as we claim to be "waiting for the next one" or "really fine with the phone I have now." In my case, a work-owned iPhone 5 was holding its own when the 5s premiered, and I couldn't really justify forking over the monthly service costs for a second phone. As a result, my first real Touch ID experience, on my recently upgraded 6 Plus, coincided almost exactly with the launch of Apple Pay. I can't say it strongly enough: Apple Pay is what Touch ID was built for, and it's one of the most vivid examples of Apple's user-first interaction design I've ever had the pleasure of using. Touch ID on its own is dandy; the iOS 8-enabled use of the thumbprint unlock in third-party apps (1Password! Finally!) and in the App Store makes it especially useful, as if unlocking your device at a touch wasn't enough. (I'd only had my new phone a few days before I found myself grumbling as I picked up my iPad -- "What, I gotta put in my passcode? Like a caveman?") But oh my, Apple Pay. Putting the power of the payment network and NFC hardware behind that little fingerprint sensor triggers a seismic shift in the way I think about using my iPhone every day. From prescriptions at Duane Reade to supplies at Staples to rides in NYC taxicabs, I'm constantly looking for new places to pay with a touch. No surprise that Apple's feel-good payment platform is beginning to transform our relationship with the overstuffed old-fashioned wallet. STM Linear for MacBook Air 13" (stmbags.com, about US$60). I'll confess that when I bought myself an STM Linear shoulder bag, it was a consolation purchase; my original object of desire was the elite and often sold-out Tom Bihn Ristretto. I was looking for a shoulder bag in a vertical profile, keeping the laptop upright and providing a lean silhouette as I carried my gear around at trade shows or meetings. Since the Bihn bag wasn't in stock when I went looking, I fell back to the STM -- and I haven't regretted it for a moment (nor did I mind that the STM bag is about half the price of the Ristretto). The Linear has enough space for the MacBook, an iPad, cables cords etc. without feeling cramped or overpacked, and the smaller capacity vs. a messenger bag or backpack keeps me from overloading when I step out the door. The Roost Stand (therooststand.com, $75). After meeting the Denver-based Roost team at Macworld/iWorld in the wake of their successful Kickstarter, I thought this unusual foldout laptop stand would be a great fit for my desk. It's portable, light and tough as a Colorado winter, and can be adjusted as needed to hold most portables securely. What I didn't expect was how viral the Roost would become; at least four co-workers have gone ahead and bought their own Roosts in the months since. If you work in an office, be sure to put your name on your Roost so it doesn't wander off. iMac Retina 5K (apple.com, starting at $2499). Who says the desktop is dead? Apple's jaw-dropping all in one model reset the notion of what a desktop PC should look like, even with a wallet-busting sticker price (in fairness, Dell's 5K monitor alone would have cost as much as the iMac, if not for a price drop after Apple's introduction). The Retina iMac is so delicious that even jaded tech writers find themselves compelled, like the NY Times' Farhad Manjoo, to take one home and give it a prominent place on their desks. I haven't replaced my 2011-vintage iMac just yet, but when I do I'll be saving up for the Big Kahuna. Jawbone ERA (jawbone.com, $99/$129 with charging case). I have never had much luck with Bluetooth headsets; whether it's fit or function, they just don't seem to work for me. Other than LG's Tone Pro around the neck headphones -- which provide great stereo sound at the cost of mediocre phone calls and "looking like a huge dork" -- I hadn't found a solid choice. That's why I've been so pleased with the new-generation Jawbone ERA, which works great for phone calls and conferences without being horribly obvious. Jawbone's noise reduction is adequate to a busy city street, and with the current firmware the hardware button can serve as a mute switch on calls (life-changing). The ERA is not cheap, but if you've struggled to find a headset that works the way you do, it's worth a look. Honorable Mention: Pebble (getpebble.com, $99/$199). It's black-and-white, not color. It's not touchable or speakable. It is decidedly not an Apple watch, but in many ways it's a better first wearable than a yet-to-ship Watch could be. Why do I enjoy my Pebble? Five days or more of battery life, for one thing. Waterproof enough to wear in the shower. Notifications that let me see who's calling, emailing, texting or tweeting at me without having to haul the 6 Plus out of my pocket fifteen times an hour. And a reasonably active app/developer community delivering cool hacks on a regular basis. No, I won't promise not to look longingly at the next shiny device coming from Cupertino soon. But I'll be looking with the benefit of a lot of experience with the first generation of wrist-based tech.
Jawbone wants to help companies keep employees healthy
There's never a bad time for a little friendly competition between co-workers, especially if it means working together to accomplish certain health-related goals. With its new Up for Groups initiative, Jawbone is looking to start just that in the workplace. The company's new ecosystem, revealed earlier today, aims to give employers a set of tools that can help keep their team motivated and reach different fitness achievements -- all while using trackers such as the Up24 and Up Move. There are a bunch of features within Up for Groups, like leaderboards, activity logs and detailed performance ratings from group members. Jawbone says the goal is to take corporate wellness beyond the typical 9-5 hours, but that the end results of the teams will, ultimately, depend on each individual's willingness to stay active.
Wearable data proves what you thought: we're less active when it's cold
It's hard to fight nature. We mammals have an instinctual urge to hibernate when the mercury starts dropping, and thanks to activity trackers we have some data to prove that theory holds true (if we actually get that sleep is another story). By correlating pedometer stats culled from "hundreds of thousands" of Jawbone Up users with weather info from their respective areas, the outfit was able to discern that there's an ideal temperature range for physical activity. Because people typically have to get up and around during the work week, Jawbone instead focused its study on weekends. You know, when we have an actual choice of whether or not we're going to get off the couch.
Jawbone takes on Misfit with the $50 Up Move
Jawbone's first budget-friendly wearable may look a tad familiar to anyone who's seen Misfit's stylish gadgets. Just like the recently announced Misfit Flash, the Up Move is a tiny $50 (£50) hockey-puck-looking device targeted at people who haven't yet jumped aboard wearable bandwagon. But while it's not necessarily revolutionary, this could be Jawbone's ticket to getting even more people on its health tracking platform.
Jawbone unveils the Up3, its most sophisticated health band yet
Nope, Jawbone still doesn't have a smartwatch of its own. But with the $180 (£150) Up3, its latest health-tracking wristband, the company is making a clear case for why it doesn't need a smartwatch (yet). With sensor technology from last year's BodyMedia purchase, Jawbone has crafted an all-day activity tracker that appears more refined than most of its competitors. Slimmer than Microsoft's recently announced Band and the Up24 , its sensors go deeper than Jawbone has ever gone before. Perhaps most significantly, it features heart rate monitoring that may actually work consistently, unlike what we've seen from many competitors. In short, the Up3 is a health tracker built for people obsessed with health tracking. If you're looking for something a bit more entry-level, consider the new Up Move, which the company also announced today.
Jawbone's Drop lets you build music playlists using tweets
At Twitter's Flight mobile developer conference, Jawbone just announced a new app called Drop, which lets you and your friends create and manage playlists with tweets. Hosain Rahman, Jawbone's CEO, says that this would be very useful in party situations, where each guest wants to add a different song to the party playlist. Once you're in the app, you can "drop" a song in a playlist by sending a tweet to a specific username. Further, you don't need the app to add songs -- your friends can just mention you on Twitter and the word "drop" followed by the name of the song or artist. According to Jawbone, the list is comprised of songs on Spotify or Rdio, so you'll need a premium or paid subscription to either of the two music services to use Drop. It should be available for iOS today, with no word on an Android version just yet.
Pebble drops prices by $50 and adds continuous fitness tracking
If you've been thinking about getting a smartwatch but haven't been persuaded to plunk down a lot of cash, Pebble's trying to make the decision a little easier for you. The watch maker is lowering the price of its full lineup by $50, which means you can now get the sporty original model (above, right) for $100 and the fancier Steel (above, left) for $200. Usually significant price drops like these are a reaction to slowing sales, but CEO Eric Migicovsky says that on the contrary, sales are still as strong as ever and the ecosystem is growing. The company wants to offer the "right price for the product" and properly represent Pebble watches in light of the swelling competition in this category, Migicovsky said. Indeed, with the debut (and proliferation) of Android Wear this year and Apple Watch next year, Pebble wants to add cost to its list of competitive advantages alongside battery life and cross-platform functionality -- especially as the holidays approach and smartwatch choices become even tougher.
Jawbone's trackerless Up app syncs with Apple Health, other fitness services (updated)
As it promised mere weeks ago, Jawbone has launched a new version of Up for iOS that syncs data from numerous health services and doesn't require its own tracker. Confusingly, the Jawbone app which does require an Up or Up24 tracker is also called 'Up' and is still available. However, the new version is more of a fitness catchall app that works with Apple's Health and over a hundred other apps (and their trackers), like RunKeeper and IFTTT. In fact, the new Up wants to manage all aspects of your health by tracking your sleep, nutrition and workouts. Once it learns your habits, the "Insight Engine" will then give you personalized health tips and other info. There are also social functions, including team tracking and the ability to boast about fitness milestones. Apple had pulled HealthKit apps a few days ago due to bugs, but after some scrambling they're now back -- you can grab Jawbone's UP for iOS here. Update: Jawbone has told us that the new Up app doesn't work with Nest after all, despite the app saying otherwise. We've updated the post to reflect that.
Jawbone Up coming to Android Wear, Apple HealthKit and Windows Phone (update: Pebble too)
Until now, Jawbone's Up bands have had the best software of any fitness tracker on the market. The problem, of course, has been that if you wanted that slick app experience, you had to buy yourself some Jawbone hardware to match -- a risky proposition when the device has some documented sudden-death issues. Not anymore, though. A company spokesperson confirmed that Jawbone will be opening up its API, allowing the software to work on Android Wear smartwatches and anything running Apple's HealthKit (translation: if and when the iWatch comes, it'll be Jawbone compatible). That means going forward, you can run Jawbone's app on your smartwatch, and enjoy the software without having to wear an Up band if you didn't want to. Additionally, Up is at last coming to Windows Phone, so if you own a WP8 handset and have been eyeing the Up24, you can finally take the plunge.
See how the Napa earthquake affected Jawbone users' sleep
If you're one of the many iPhone users with a Jawbone UP strapped to your wrist, you might be used to seeing pretty standard peaks and valleys on your sleep charts. Not so for many in Northern California who were awoken by the rumblings of one of the largest earthquakes to hit the area in several decades -- and the consolidated sleep data is actually pretty cool to look at. As you can see, shortly before 3:30 AM, huge numbers of UP wearers sprung from their beds thanks to the rumblings below their feet. Napa, Sonoma, Vallejo, and Berkeley were the quickest to wake thanks to their proximity to the epicenter, while other affected regions experienced a slight delay before having their sleep interrupted. Thankfully, no deaths were reported, and it appears most people got back to their pillows before too long.
Jawbone knows how many of its users were roused by the Napa earthquake
Think you could sleep through an earthquake? Probably not, judging by data from Jawbone. The company says that almost everyone using its Jawbone Up device to track their sleep near South Napa was awakened by yesterday's earthquake. About 90 percent of its users were asleep, and the closer you were to the epicenter, the more likely it is you woke up. Farther out, about half the users in San Francisco and Oakland arose; almost nobody was disturbed 75 to 100 miles away in Modesto. Since Jawbone's fitness trackers push data to smartphones and other devices, the company was able to get a quick and detailed look into how the locals felt. The stats are interesting, to be sure, but may give you pause if didn't realize Jawbone could publish your exercise stats at a moment's notice.
Wearable device shipments have soared in the past year
In case you had any doubts that wearable devices were catching on, Canalys just delivered some tangible proof. The analyst group estimates that the tech industry shipped a total of about 6 million smartwatches and fitness trackers in the first half of 2014, or nearly 700 percent more than it managed a year earlier. Not surprisingly, most of the watches were Samsung devices -- the Korean company's rapid-fire Gear watch releases made it almost ubiquitous. Pebble and Sony also did well in this fledgling space. Fitbit and Jawbone, meanwhile, moved many of the simpler wristbands.
