6 Reasons Why I Love the Jawbone UP24 (& Why You Might Too)

This post is sponsored by Jawbone, but I loved this fitness tracker long before I connected with the nice people there, and I am more than happy to write this review. Get ready for me to totally geek out!

I’ve used the Jawbone UP24 for 4.5 months now, so, not surprisingly, I have a lot to say about it. It has sooooo many cool features, so I wasn’t sure where to begin with my review, and I decided to highlight my favorite things about the UP24.

Without further ado, here are the 6 reasons why I love the Jawbone UP24 and why I think you might too!

It encourages me to move more.

This is definitely the #1 thing that I love most about the Jawbone UP24. It’s constantly tracking my movement and idle time throughout the day, so I get real-time updates whenever I want to track my progress or need a little motivation. It’s basically checking in with yourself to see how you’re doing.

The UP24 is more than just a pedometer because it sends me push notifications to tell me how close I am to my 10,000 step goal. (It also tracks my sleep… more on that in a minute!) For instance, it will let me know that I’m at 8,000 steps for the day, so I’ll make my afternoon walk with Murphy a little longer or head out for a family walk in the evening to make sure I hit my goal. It’s like having my own personal coach to push me to be more active. It’s awesome.

Side note: The UP24 tracks your steps and running. In the above image, the red and orange bars in the graph are me running. It tracks other activities, like CrossFit, for instance, but it records the activity as general movement. It’s technically counted as steps by the UP24, but at a lesser level (as you can see by the smaller bars in the graph). The yellow peak late in the afternoon is me at CrossFit. I can’t remember the exact workout that we did, but the UP24 picked up on that movement. The other shorter yellow bars are me walking around the house and running errands.

It track my runs.

The UP24 syncs with RunKeeper, so I get a more detailed report of my running, including my route, pace, duration, goals, personal records… everything the app would normally do, but it syncs with my UP24, which means I can use it as a GPS watch too and all of my data is in one place and easily accessible on my phone. So cool! This is feature is especially awesome if you run or walk with a jogging stroller and you’re not constantly moving your arm with the UP24 to count your steps. I was actually kind of bummed when I realized that the UP24 didn’t record my steps when I was holding onto the stroller handle, but then I discovered the RunKeeper app and it was a game-changer (and the coolest thing ever)!

It helps me prioritize sleep.

The UP24 has been a life-saver with an infant. It gives me an in-depth summary of my sleep, including graphs to let me know when and how much deep sleep and light sleep I get and how often I wake up during the night.

With waking up to feed Quinn, sometimes multiple times a night, the UP24 has been awesome with helping me prioritize sleep when I go a few nights without getting a lot. The UP will send me bedtime reminders, like suggesting going to bed earlier to catch up on lost sleep. I especially like this when Quinn wakes up 3-4 times each night, and I have trouble getting back to sleep. I know I’m not sleeping much, but seeing it in black and white on my UP24 encourages me to make it a priority, so I try to take naps and go to bed earlier when I can. These little adjustments make all the difference, and I can function like a normal person! Haha! You can also use the Power Nap and Smart Alarm settings to get to sleep and wake up at optimal times for you.

It connects to my favorites apps.

This is one of my favorite things about the Jawbone UP24. When I realized how many different apps it works with, it got a whole lot cooler to use! And the apps have expanded beyond just fitness, nutrition, and sleep apps. Now you can adjust your Nest Learning Thermostat, monitor your house with SmartThings, and walk your dog with Whistle, just to name a few. In addition to RunKeeper, I used MyFitnessPal for a little while at the beginning of the summer to track my meals and calories. It was so neat to see how they synced together. I had all of my food and exercise data in one place. (I know a lot of people use and love MyFitnessPal, so I wanted to make sure you guys knew about this awesome feature!) Additionally, the UP24 syncs with Gym Pact, Lose It, HealthyOut, PlateJoy, The Orange Chef, Munchery, and more! You can check out all of the compatible apps here.

It helps me get to know myself better and understand my choices.

The UP24 automatically tracks your daily activity and night’s sleep, so besides just pushing a button on the band before you fall asleep and after you wake up to let it know that you are asleep/awake, you don’t need to do anything else to it. Ok, well, you need to charge it about once a week, but it only takes about 20 minutes.

The UP24 also gives me “daily insights” and updates to keep me motivated toward my goals. For instance, it’ll give me summaries about how many steps I’ve taken or how much sleep I’ve gotten, like the one below. (This is in addition to the real-time graphs and tallies you can access all the time via the UP app or online.)

It’s a visual reminder of my health and fitness goals.

I wear the UP24 pretty much 24/7 (I take it off when I shower), so it’s a constant reminder of my health and fitness goals. Simply glancing at my wrist during my daily activities motivates me to move more and prioritize sleep. It’s also a discrete accessory that doesn’t get in the way of my everyday life. I’d even say it’s kind of fashionable compared to other fitness trackers on the market. For those of you who asked about why Mal picked the Jawbone UP24 over other trackers, the way it looked was the main reason. He liked that it wasn’t an obvious tracker and looked kind of cool as a piece of arm candy. Additionally, he said he liked that the UP24 was compatible with so many different kinds of apps and the actual UP phone app was a lot more user-friendly and polished than other ones.