UPDATED 07:01 EDT / NOVEMBER 08 2011

Health Tracking Extends Life for Gadget Makers

How important is it that we stay healthy?  In this modern time, almost everything is designed for the comfort and convenience of all the users.  Things come in the most convenient way–just think of all the remote controls you have to work the countless devices in your house.  Some even controlled through our smartphones.

But the downside to all this convenience is a new string of “lifestyle diseases,” now becoming a worldwide problem.  And the people affected by these technologically-driven illnesses are not limited to adults. The issues are all the more alarming because even children and young people are already victims of this sad reality.

To address this growing health issues due to unhealthy lifestyles, Jawbone, better known for its Bluetooth headsets and devices, will sell an all-in-one fitness gadget in the form of a wristband that can track your habits to promote health.   The Jawbone Up is a system that leverages its digital wristband to detail your current lifestyle activities, such as eating, drinking, exercise, as well as sleep patterns.  Seeing how these activities create patterns and affect your life can drive end users to make necessary changes in their lives.

“The big idea here is to help make people consumers of their own health,” says Hosain Rahman, Joebone CEO.

“We probably know less about our bodies than we do about our phones.”

So how exactly this Up wristband works?  There’s a Jawbone iOS app that works through the headphone jack.  The device has the ability to sense that the wearer is sitting quite too long, and will send a signal to remind the wearer to get up and get active, through its vibrating feature. It also has a motion sensor that will automatically count distances taken while walking or running, as it calculates the total calories burned during activity.  Moreover, the app can be used to show where you’ve been throughout the day, so you can track your movements as well.

The wristband doesn’t stop its work when the wearer is asleep because it tracks the number of hours you slept, and analyzes your overall sleep quality.  With that data, Up can subsequently wake you up with a vibration.  This will occur after detecting that the wearer has already gotten optimum time in their sleep cycle.

Additional features of the Up device and associated app is a photo journal you can use to track what you eat, taking advantage of the buit in cameras of the Apple mobile devices.

Personal health and fitness is a great segue for connected devices, offering an early use case for practical applications.  Another personal health and fitness device that tracks and analyzes activity and sleep is Fitbit Ultra, which costs $109–a bit more expensive than Jawbone’s Up at $99.  Aside from the health benefits, the Fitbit Ultra bracelets are fashion-friendly too, coming in a variety of colors.

“We are not science experts or experts in your health,” Rahman says.

“We are just doing what Silicon Valley does best, which is giving people the tools to experience things in new ways.”


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