Jawbone UP3: for the not so fit

Published Jul 29, 2015

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One of the finest 1980s car stickers was the timeless: “Designed by a computer, built by robots, driven by a moron.”

It sums up how I feel every time I clip on a fitness bracelet filled with GPS aerials and accelerometers, before waddling and wheezing around the park.

Having tried a few space-age wristbands aimed at health fiends who do triathlons before breakfasting on quinoa porridge, I’ve been waiting for one suitable for a demographic that’s less enthusiastic, but much larger (in both senses): the unfit.

Jawbone’s UP3 seems to be aimed at the slightly slower-paced.

Anyone who owns no Lycra clothing will relish the fact that the gadget focuses more on sleeping than on “personal bests” achieved.

Rather than constantly offering readouts of your current heart rate – largely useless and often alarming information – it focuses on how you sleep and your resting heart rate, as measured when you wake up.

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Resting heart rate is a good index of how fit you are overall – and a decent metric for how you are progressing if you start a fitness programme.

It’s spiced up by occasionally annoying titbits of advice from the app, which the wristband pairs with via Bluetooth. – Daily Mail

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