Jawbone's new UP24 proves that activity-tracking wrist bands and traditional wrist watches can peacefully co-exist on a single human limb.
Dig it: Most wrist-worn activity trackers are thick and bulky. Some even include clock displays. Slip one of these specimens next to your Swatch or Victorinox, and it appears you're wearing two watches. Yeah, it's not a good look. That's why I've always been a fan of Jawbone's simple, nondescript wristbands. I can wrap one right above my watch, and it looks like I'm wearing some type of fashion-neutral man jewelry. Dignity: preserved. No one gets hurts.
image: mike homnickFitness trackers are best deployed on your non-dominant wrist—which is sometimes already playing host to a favorite timepiece.
But Jawbone's UP line has always suffered a heart-breaking drawback: You have always had to remove the band and plug it into your smartphone's headphone jack to see the latest data on your step and sleep patterns. Until now. Enter the UP24, which finally, finally, finally brings Bluetooth syncing to Jawbone's quantified self platform.
Bluetooth syncing for the UP24 is currently only available for late-model iOS devices, but dissing Android owners is par for the course in the activity-tracking wrist band game. All the companies do it, ignoring Android entirely, or adding support for individual phones in intermittent bursts of generosity. That said, slowly but surely Jawbone has made its original UP band compatible with a solid collection of Android handsets, so hopefully the company will quickly follow suit with the UP24 as well.
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