I thought this was an interesting concept when news made the rounds earlier this year. Looks like November 6th is the retail date in the US.

It's a motion-sensing bracelet that, along with an iOS app, makes up a system allowing you to track fitness activity and sleep. The app also allows you to journal your food consumption and then applies magic to help you lead a healthier lifestyle.

http://jawbone.com/up

I wonder how many people are going to balk at the fact it requires you to remove the device and connect it via 3.5mm headphone jack to sync with your phone. It has to be as obvious to Jawbone as it is to me that a wireless connection would have been infinitely more usable. Practical even, were it not for the trade-offs they probably had to asses, like battery life and mechanical engineering.

Haven't found any information on whether they'll have an SDK for this, allowing third party app support, but I'm going to keep my eye on it.

Hopefully version 2 can switch over to Bluetooth 4.0, specifically the low energy version. Currently the only i device to support 4.0 is the 4S, not enough of a market quite yet for Jawbone to target.

To save on energy they could always employ wireless sync only on-demand. With a button (internal) on the device, squeeze part of it to activate. That initiates the sync, then it shuts off the BT radio again. Not "live" but better than taking the device off and making a physical connection.

Wireless charging, perhaps even motion-generated, would take it over the top.

From the moment it was announced, I haven't been able to figure out why this thing has any advantages whatsoever over the Fitbit. Here's my run-down:

• The UP has to be worn on your wrist at all times, where the Fitbit can be worn anywhere on your torso you're able to attach it
• The UP must be connected to the headphone jack of your phone, the Fitbit talks wirelessly (and without any interaction) to a USB adapter connected to your computer.
• The UP requires iOS
• The UP features a 10-day battery life. The Fitbit lasts about that long but also has an OLED display and constant monitoring for its wireless adapter
• Until I know more about how the motion sensor works, I'm skeptical how it can tell the difference between walking, running, and something like grating cheese

That last one is most important to me. I just don't understand how your wrist is as good a point on your body for tracking whole-body motion as your torso is. The Fitbit is very accurate from the informal tests I've done.

I am personally not a jewelry/accessories person, and the idea of having a wristband on my arm all day every day is terribly unappealing.

I can't stress how impressive the wireless communication is. It requires a computer to be turned on, but the FitBit can store at least a week of data, so as long as you're near the adapter sometime once a week, you're good. The dock is also the charging station anyway, so it can upload when you're charging too. The charging times on the Fitbit are crazy good too. I typically charge it while I'm in the shower and that's more than enough.

The rest of the features match up, and both devices are $99. To me it seems the UP is far more overpriced than the Fitbit, which everyone seems to say is overpriced already.

It seems to me that with the announcement of the new Fitbit, which also has an altimeter, the Fitbit has much more impressive technology.

But I'd love to hear what advantage the UP has, other than the vibration reminder.

I suspect the UP will outsell the FitBit by at least an order of magnitude, if not more. I'm not saying it's deserving, but they just seem to have a better command of all the buttons to push (marketing, presentation, lifestyle, etc..)

Wearing a bracelet is a lor more intuitive and part of established customs. This is a plus for UP. It doesn't hurt too that people over the past 5+ years have been going nuts on all kinds of rubber bracelets. Sure, there are people who don't like wearing adornments, but they're in the minority camp. I'm sure the technology could quite easily be wrapped into any shape, as long as the software is updated to properly deal with the new data. In this case being distinctly different than everyone else is a huge advantage.

Does the FitBit talk wirelessly to a phone or only to a computer? If only a computer, that's a huge negative, even though it's wireless. Society is moving away from the computer as the hub. A lot of people have only computers that belong to work, so their only "personal" computing device may be a tablet or phone. I have a lot of friends in the corporate world like this.

The iOS requirement for the UP is temporary, but not in the least a problem, since iOS consumers account for the majority of persons who would likely buy such a device in the first place. If you have limited engineering capacity, develop for the widest audience possible first. Android support is coming.

You can go swimming with the UP device. You don't need additional attachments to put it on your wrist when you go to sleep like the FitBit. If you're already wearing it, chances are you'll keep wearing it. If it's just another little device, chances are you'll stop using it.

Basis is another wrist-bound alternative - that apparently isn't out yet.

http://mybasis.com/

Though it's bulky as hell by comparison, and it just doesn't have that "magic" the Jawbone product has. Let's get something straight, the "magic" and whimsy are what's going to sell the Jawbone product.

Verge review of Up, and contains a comparison to the Fitbit.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/6/2541783/jawbone-up-review

Presumably they didn't want to/couldn't be bothered to spend months and month going through the hoops to get on the made for iPod/works with iPhone programme, which is the only way of getting a Bluetooth accessory to work.

Okay, I'll accept that conclusion. Like many things, it depends on the buyer. The Fitbit isn't for everyone, and the UP isn't either.

But the clear and obvious issue is that if you don't have an iPhone, you aren't buying an UP, at least not until they get around to writing the app.

I still question how accurate the UP is, though. I would have loved it if the author of this article had done step count comparisons between the devices to see how close they were.

"If you don't have an iPhone, well you don't have an iPhone".

(I'm kinda glad they moved away from that marketing message personally)