Half yard at the yard house. Boom

Fitbit Flex vs Jawbone UP – Sleep Tracking

The Flex & UP support very similar sleep tracking, but each device has its own twist on things.

 

Changing Modes

Fitbit Flex:

To put the Flex into sleep mode you have to tap the face of the tracker repeatedly until 2 of the 5 lights are lit and it vibrates.  You do the same thing again to get it out of sleep mode.  I haven’t been able to tell exactly how many taps it takes, to get to the center of a Fitbit, I mean change the mode as sometimes it seems to need faster taps or slower taps.

 

Jawbone Up:

The Up has 1 button and only 1 button.  To change modes you push and hold the button until the “Green Moon” ( or Blue Moon on some bands ) led lights up and the band vibrates.  Changing back is the same, except the “Green Sun” lights up.

Silent Alarms

Both devices support silent alarms, but they do so slightly differently.

Jawbone Up

The Up allows you to set multiple repeatable alarms per day, while this in itself isn’t unique, how it wakes you Up.  The Up “Smart Alarm” will wake you up within a, configurable, window when you are in a light sleep, which is supposed to make you feel more awake and feel more rested.

The Up also supports a “Power Nap” feature, which will calculate an “ideal” nap time sometime between 27-45 minutes based on your previous nights sleep.  To start a power nap you press the button twice and then press and hold until the green moon flashes, then quickly try to fall asleep.

Fitbit Flex

The Flex is very similar to the Up, offering multiple repeatable alarms, but the one real place that it lacks is the the “Smart” portion of the alarm.  The Fitbit will vibrate at the exact time that the alarm was set for, no earlier nor later, which while fine, is not quite as nice as the “Smart Alarm” the Up offers.

The Fitbit does not offer a nap tracking feature.

 

Sleep Tracking

Each device displays the data from your sleep a little differently.

Jawbone Up:

The Up has a very easy to understand display of your sleep data:

The light blue color represents a “light” sleep, the dark blue color represents “deep” sleep and any orange ( if present ) represents times you’ve woken up.  The ZZZ represents the time you actually fell asleep from the time you changed into sleep mode.  If a little alarm icon shows up, that is where your silent alarm went off to wake you.

Fitbit Flex:

 

 

 

Overview

The Jawbone Up has more features, but when it comes down to the actual data logged, I feel like the Flex was more accurate ( I actual recall waking up at least a few times and the Jawbone didn’t recognize any of those.  I wish the Flex was able to distinguish more the light & deep sleep and have a similar “Smart Alarm” feature that the Up has.

My next write up will be activity tracking.

Jawbone Up (v2) vs Fitbit Flex – Setup Comparison

Introduction

 

I purchased the Jawbone Up shortly after it was first announced.  Unfortunately there were a number of QA issues with the version 1 band which left me contacting Jawbone over and over for replacements.  Once the iPhone 5 was released, the original Up didn’t work anymore and I was left without a “fitness tracker” of any sort.

 

When the Up 2 was released, I was lucky enough to get one very early on.  I’ve been very pleased with the Up in general but being a tech guy, I am always wanting to try new things, so I decided to go out and get a Flex.  Well, ok I wanted a Flex since they were announced but they’ve been backordered just about everywhere online and sold out in store.  I found one at a Best Buy today when picking up an AppleTV so I figured it was a sign that I should get it.  At least that’s what I’ll tell my wife 🙂

 

The Up and Flex have a number of similarities, they have a very limited interface on the hardware itself, they are more meant to blend in to your attire and just be part of you rather than be more of a fashion statement ( like the Nike Fuel band ).  The Flex and Fitbit both track daily steps, calories burned and consumed ( if you use their apps/website or integrate with a 3rd party app like MyFitnessPal, more on that in a later post ).

Setup

The Up and Fitbit are both very easy to get started with.  Unpackage the device, download the App, create an account and pair the device.  For the Up this involves connecting the band to the phone by plugging it in to the headphone jack.  Whenever you want to update your data to the app, you need to take the bend off your wrist, take off the cap and plug it into your phone. For the Flex you press “connect” and it pairs through bluetooth, and anytime you want to update your data you just open the app and the data updates.

 

You can then go in and customize your information such as height, weight, stride length and other information.

Both apps use your age, height and weight to calculate your BMR which will be used in conjunction with your activity to calculate your total calories burned.

As days pass I’ll work on getting up a solid comparison on the two devices in just about every aspect I can think of.