In the midst of a busy life, remembering to look after your health can be a challenge. Enter the new generation of fitness trackers. Stylish, streamlined and full of smarts, these trackers are a far cry from the pedometers of old.
I wanted to know if the hype was worth it. After a bit of research, I settled on the UP3 by Jawbone.
The UP3 promised to be a state of the art tracker that feeds back all kinds of information including sleep patterns, activity and cardiac stats.
It was one of the more expensive trackers on the market at 170$ CAN but I felt the promise of “wear it almost anywhere” (you can’t submerge it in water!) and “monitor many aspects of your health” would give me a good taste of what these trackers can do.
I have had a mixed experience with this tracker.
The great points about it are as follows:
It is sleek and unassuming. I could wear it with anything. It was subtle and could fit a wide range of wrists.
It gave me a lot of information including my resting heart rate though I did question how accurate this was.
It also cued and reminded me to drink more water and to move more. It gave me information on the number of my steps and encouraged me to meet or beat my average throughout the week.
It was aware of my heart rate when I was active and asked me to track and record what I had done.
It gave me interesting and useful facts and stats about health and wellness. I could also track my food if I wanted to use this feature.
I am a naturally competitive person and the goals and tracking mixed with accountability worked really well for me. There was also the ability to compete with friends if I wanted though I did not use this feature.
The downside for me was the device itself. It did not hold its charge the way it promised. I found myself having to charge it every three days, not the promised seven or so days. I also found the latch of the device tricky to do up by myself at times.
The charge issue was a major downside for me and I am not sure if this is the case with all of their devices or just the one I purchased. If the name of the game is adding ease, accountability and knowledge to your day, having to stop and charge your device every two to three days is more than a little inconvenient.
The device itself, however when charged, kept me interested motivated and feeling in charge.
Perhaps I got a lemon? Reviews of this tracker did not indicate that this was a common problem. And there are certainly other trackers by JAWBONE or other companies on the market. Fitbit being a very well-known alternate tracker.
In principle, if you can afford it, these trackers are more than worth it for the day-to-day accountability. Keeping on track with your weight management goals is hard. There is no question that devices like this make reaching your goals easier.
(I will follow-up with customer service and get to the bottom of my UP3 problems. I will keep you posted if I resolve my issues with this particular tracker.)