Jawbone UP3 Review

Jawbone UP3 Review

UP3

Jawbone planning something big for its UP3 fitness tracker. When it was released initially, Jawbone was very excited to add that the UP3 tracker would be the very first 24/7 fitness tracker you can use it to not only count your steps in each day, but also count your laps while swimming or running.

But it revealed that Jawbone's eagerness to build an all-encompassing fitness tracking device were not to be. As production and buying scaled up, the company hasn’t officially announced that the device was waterproof. So, after a deep, long look at the device, the UP3 that's now pointing shelves all over the world is not exactly the device we were announced last year.

The new UP3 is completely different in design and look with the previous devices of the UP band. Gone is little bit stretcher, changing bracelet design, overlapped instead with a much more safe watch-like bracelet. Slim, lightweight and with built-in sensors, the device uses a unique side-sliding feature to hold it in right place. It's a slightly awkward to put on. It does get comfortable with little bit of time, but right now it’s not as comfortable as some of the Apple Watch designs.

Beside the radical design, the Jawbone UP3 device is still noticeably a tracker from the deep mind of Yves Behar. It equipped with the familiar textured body structure as other Jawbone devices, with a distinct texture for both of the colors currently available in market – black and silver.

The main idea behind is that by adding all the extra sensors, UP3 is able to track even more information points, giving it more steps to impress you to keep healthy. In device interestingly though, some of those sensors are not actually being able to translate data into useful information yet. Company has promises that these sensors will be working in the future or in next version of device, delivering an extensive range of additional features via the UP application, and we will update our article when they arrive or fully activate. But right now, do the features offered by the Jawbone UP3 fitness tracker make it a worthwhile device in the highly competitive fitness tracker world?

As a step fitness tracker, there are many things to like about the UP3 tracker. It sustains the accuracy level that we had seen in previous versions of trackers, and integrate that with a much secure wrist band. The introduction of Duels and the continuously refinement of the Coach, with prompts and tips to grow your daily life activity are great. But while track counting performance has remained the same, and the band has much improved, there are many serious challenges for user on the front interface. For a startup the touch display isn’t permanent. Before the latest update in firmware, selecting between active and sleep modes needs you to tap double on the display, then hold it by pressing until it vibrated and change the mode.

There's nothing to deny it: the Jawbone UP3 looks like an incomplete device yet. Subtracting the reality that it was expected to launch as a waterproof product, the fact that it adds a bunch of extra sensors that don't seems to be pulling their real weight means there is no actual reason to purchase this instead of UP2.