Valentina Palladino
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Not everyone was impressed with Jawbone's Up2 and Up3 trackers. Even with their bright colors and slim design, they felt peculiarly basic. The Up3 especially seemed to take a few steps back, with a clasp that was frustratingly difficult to secure and heart rate sensors that only measured your pulse once a day and nothing more.
But the wild card was the
Up4
. The most premium of Jawbone's devices, it became available after the Up2 and Up3, does everything that the first two can do, and includes American Express NFC payment integration. A software update released in September addressed some of those previous product issues for all three Up bands, including passive heart rate monitoring and automatic sleep detection.
Now that all of Jawbone's products are on the same page with the most basic features, the Up4 aims to be the stand-out tracker of them all by letting you take a portion of your wallet with you even when you've left it at home.
Design
All of Jawbone's trackers look fairly similar: thin wristbands with a module that sits atop your wrist and blends into the rest of the band. The main physical difference between the Up3 and the Up4 is that the Up4 is currently available in silver and black while the Up3 is ready to wear in multiple colors. The Up4 is made of TPU rubber and the rigid sensor hub that's encased in anodized aluminum. There's a crosshatch pattern on the top of the module that gives the Up4 the appearance of a tufted chair or pillow—certainly not jewelry or high fashion, but pleasant nonetheless.
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The device's underbelly contains all the important hardware, including five "bioimpedance" sensors and the magnetic nodes that attach to the band's charger. Instead of an optical heart rate monitor, the Up4 uses bioimpedance sensors to take your pulse similar to how a treadmill or elliptical at the would measure it through its handlebars. The sensors send small electrical currents through your skin and measure the tissue's resistance to calculate how many times your heart beats in a minute. As for movement, the Up4 monitors activity with a tri-axis accelerometer embedded inside the module.
The last Up4 design feature of note is the clasp. It's a kind of hook-and-eye closure, where you thread one side of the band through a small metal loop and then hook one part of the clasp into the other. It remains tricky to do with one hand, but not as bad as the original clasp on the Up3 was. The Up4 is "one size fits most," measuring 8.6 x 0.5 x 0.4 inches, but you can adjust the placement of the hook to comfortably accommodate a larger wrist.
The bottom of the Up4, with the clasp and the NFC icon.
Place your wrist near a payment machine with this icon facing up to pay with your American Express card.
The hook-and-eye type closure can be difficult to fasten, but it's secure when you do.
The underside of the band has multiple "bioimpedance" sensors.
Underneath the module there's one sensor and the nodes for the magnetic charger.
Jawbone's logo at the end of one side of the band.
The hook-and-eye closure, with the curved piece of metal that keeps both sides of the band flush to your wrist.
The tufted design on the Up4 is subtle—while it doesn't look like jewelry, it's not offensive.
You can almost see the icons here that light up when you change activity modes or when an alarm goes off.
Currently the Up4 only comes in silver, but a black version is on the way.
Features and the Up App
One you download the Up companion app for Android and iOS and connect the Up4 to your account, you can put the wristband on and go about your day. The Up4 tracks all of your activity, including steps, calories, and active time, and syncs the most current data to the app every time you open it. Unlike a Fitbit device, it doesn't keep track of stairs climbed, so don't expect to be commended for skipping the elevator at work.
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You can log workouts and training sessions by switching into Stopwatch mode in the app. It basically sets a timer for your workout, so when you're finished you can go back into the app, stop the Stopwatch, and then add details about your session. You can choose from a number of activities including walking, running, weight lifting, cross training, Pilates, Zumba, soccer, baseball, hiking and more. You can also change your "effort level," or how vigorous of a workout it was, and your start time and duration. All of these components contribute to your daily calorie burn and active time, which you can see by tapping the orange arrow on the app's homepage.
Next to the orange arrow is a purple arrow that tracks sleep. Up bands have always monitored sleep, but now they do so automatically. It's one of the improvements Jawbone made recently in a software update for the Up2, Up3, and Up4—you no longer have to switch modes in the app before going to bed. When you hit the hay, the band will recognize you're asleep by your lack of movement and slower heart rate.
The morning after the first night I slept with the Up4 on, the app asked me if I had been asleep from 11pm to 6am—I believe this is its way of learning my sleeping habits. As nights progressed, the Up band timed my sleep better, getting closer to the moment I fell into dreamland each time. Even after the fact, you can go into the app and adjust your sleep time, as well as see how long you were in deep, light, and REM sleep and how many times you woke up during the night.
