08h00: Buzz buzz buzz… A soft vibration runs up my arm, gently waking me from slumber. This is the smart alarm feature that the UP24 offers. Like many other systems and apps out there, the smart alarm tracks where you are in your sleep cycle and will wake you up to 30 minutes before the time you have set on your alarm. The alarm is set through the app and you can create up to 5 recurring alarms. A quick touch of the button and I am out of sleep mode – if only it was that easy. Never once has the band woken me before 08h00, but then again, I am an unpredictable unicorn (more about that later).
08h15: A cup of Chemex coffee to start the morning. Quickly nip onto the UP Coffee app on my iPhone and log the 12oz cup (150mg of caffeine injected into the system). System boot complete; time to get the day going.
09h00: Quick detour to grab a Double Meia de Leite from Vida (that’s another 150mg of caffeine into the system).
09h15: STUFF Towers – and look, I have taken 10% of my daily step goal; 400 steps and 320m. As the UP24 is connected via Bluetooth, you can constantly see a live update of your step count via the Jawbone UP app.
09h30: A fruit salad and a small tub of yogurt for breakfast, and I can see that that amounts to 149 calories. The app has certain built-in meals, but it is easy enough to add your own meals into the app. You can scan the barcode and if it has been uploaded to the database it will ask you how many servings you had. If not, you can enter all the nutritional details into the app. Just remember, you have to convert the kJ to calories (divide by 4.1868). Another giant cup of coffee (195mg this time) and work can commence.
12h30: With all the walking around the office I have managed to stack up 1,600 steps – 40% of the way there. The salad and the chicken breast for lunch counts as 514 calories but the scary thing is the 1,041mg of sodium in it. That’s half my daily allowance in one go. The app gives you a breakdown of the key nutritional factors, including fiber, fats, both saturated and unsaturated, carbs, sugar, protein and cholesterol. Another giant cup of coffee; another 195mg of caffeine.
17h30: Time for a run. A quick 3km (±3,500 steps) and I am on the way to having a great day. Log my dinner and I have taken in a total of 2,271 calories for the day.
23h30: Time for bed. A quick touch of the button and the band is put into sleep mode, ready to track how my night’s rest will be. A quick overview of the app and I can see that I burnt a total of 2,430 calories for the day. Not bad going!
The UP Coffee app is great to see how caffeine affects your body with regards to your sleep. By inputting your intake it works out how much caffeine is in your system at any given moment. It tells you when you are sleep ready and it records the number of hours of sleep you get (pulled from the UP app) together with the amount of caffeine in your system. It does reports for you and lets you know how you stack up against other app users in terms of your intake. It gives you a breakdown of your sleep and if you are lucky enough, you may be called an unpredictable unicorn. That means you can sleep no matter the amount of caffeine in your system; seems there are not many of us out there.
The UP24 band charges through a USB port with their proprietary cable. The band charge lasts for 7 days. There were occasions where the band unsynced itself and needed to be soft reset. No data was lost, but it was still an inconvenience. The band is a little bulky and does have a strange ergonomic design on the wrist. Sometimes it gets in the way of your clothes and can be uncomfortable at times. But after a few days you get used to the way it sits on your arm. It is very pretty to look at though. So I guess they counter each other out.
Overall this a great tool to aid you in reaching dieting and exercise goals. Together with a slick app, and many compatible apps, including a water intake app, an app to monitor your weight loss, a running app and even a menstrual cycle app, the Jawbone UP24 band is a must have.
