Jawbone Gets Back Up For The Second Time

You might remember when Jawbone announced the promising UP wristband that resembled what Nike was doing with their FuelBand just last year. However, the hardware design was subpar and ended up being recalled and Jawbone offered a "No Questions Asked" refund to all of its customers. 

Now, they're back at it again with the Jawbone UP 2.0 that features a much better redesign in both the hardware as well as the software. The main issue users had with the old UP was that water would sneak into the band itself and cause mayhem on the circuitry, leaving you with a dead or twitchy wristband. For some odd reason, Jawbone didn't think users would be "bending and playing" with the UP as much as they had planned, which led to more circuit board issues such as cracking. 

To redeem themselves, Jawbone has improved the overall bonding of the UP wristband and has upgraded their circuit boards with much more flexible versions. By decreasing the number of joints and exposed areas on the UP, it should reduce the number of problems users have experienced in the past version. 

On top of hardware, the iOS app got a nice makeover too. Featuring sleep tracking, smarter calorie counters and even some push notifications to recommend some jogging on your lazy days. 

These redesigned wristbands will be available for $129 and will be on sale immediately on their website. They are currently only available in black but will come in 8 different flavors later on. 

Nike+ FuelBand Now Available At Apple Stores

Nike's water-resistant Nike+ FuelBand fitness tracking wristband gadget is no longer being exclusively sold at Nike's online and brick and mortar stores. The FuelBand is now being sold at Apple online and brick and mortar stores for $150 in new color schemes that include a geeky looking transparent white, semi-transparent smoke and black colors. The FueldBand features a streamline bright LED dot-matrix display and can track your steps, calorie burn and display digital time amongst other things.

The Jawbone Up Is Dead

Remember Jawbone's uber stylish, waterproof wristband fitness and sleep tracker? Yeah... We've also forgotten about it. To help jog your memory, Jawbone's Up was short lived due to a massive fault with each and every Up device having its internal rechargeable battery fail after only a few days of use. After issuing a total recall which we must say, Jawbone admirably handled and controlled the situation by promptly refunding its early adopters, or what felt like a bunch of beta testers, and letting them keep their dead fashion gadget accessory to boot.

Since that very day, Jawbone ceased to sell the Up and put up a notice saying that the Up will be coming back. But after nearly a year of waiting for Jawbone to get their act together, the Up band was a no show. We only think it would be fair that we would be unofficially deeming the Up dead and gone.

But not for good. We expect the all-new and much improved, Up 2.0, to make a come back at CES 2013. Obviously Jawbone has had more than enough time to not only learn from its past mistakes, but to also catch up to some of the new fitness tracking devices that have made their way into the fitness conscience part of the tech world - post Up. We're thinking the purported Up 2.0 will bring with it a show-thru dot-matrix LED time, calorie and step activity stat display - a la Nike FuelBand, along with Android and Windows 8 mobile support at the least. Until then, you might want to check out some new fitness tracking gadgets like the recently announced Fitbit One.

Fitbit Outs Fitbit One, Fitbit Zip Fitness Trackers

It wasn't long ago since Fitbit released the Fitbit Ultra, and now it's time for a worthy replacement. The Fitbit One is the company's latest weather and sweat-proof fitness tracker which will track the daily amounts of calories you've burned, distance traveled, steps taken and even the number of stairs you've climbed. The Fitbit One features a vibrating alarm that silently wakes you up when worn on the wrist, and Bluetooth 4.0 that let's the One wirelessly sync your stats over to your iOS device, Mac or PC automatically. The Fitbit One is slimmer than its predecessor, has a built-in rechargeable battery that should last up to 7 days, and adds the ever so gimmicky sleep tracking feature that claims to help you sleep more soundly by tracking how long and well you've slept and in turn it'll throw your way a sleep quality rank and pattern stats. The Fitbit One is ready to be pre-ordered now for $100 in black and burgundy colors, and will ship in late October.

If tracking how well you've slept last night, staircase climbing and vibrating alarms aren't your thing, then the Fitbit Zip is the cuter chubby bunny, basic fitness tracker that does everything else. Unlike the rechargeable battery inside the One, the Zip actually includes a replaceable button battery used in watches that's said to last up to 6 months of use. And you're in luck too, because the Fitbit One not only comes in more color choices, it's available right now for $60. Both of these Fitbit trackers include a silicone clip that let's you wear them on your person.