My week with the Jawbone UP

Posted on November 10, 2011 by JoshCork
So I started this post as a collection of thoughts so I could later use to do a video blog.  The video blog is coming but I’ve been so frustrated with my multiple Jawbone UP wristbands that I wanted to get this out there right away.  It turned from a collection of bulleted thoughts into a log of what was happening.  Hence the weird format.  Also, just of note even though I’ve had a rotten experience over the last week my wife’s medium-sized UP wristband has worked like a champ with no issues whatsoever. 

  1. I’m afraid for my Macbook air… the metal on the bottom of the jawbone UP might scratch the wrist pad when I type.
  2. I can’t stand typing on my Macbook air keyboard while wearing the jawbone up. It bothers my wrists (same reason I take off my watch when typing)…. We’ll see how it goes with my ergo keyboard at work.
  3. I love the jawbone up app, very cool.
  4. Looks like you can only set one alarm in the jawbone up app?  Need to take a look at this more closely.  –> confirmed you can only set one alarm, so you get to choose your day the week only once.  You can’t have a separate alarm for Saturday/Sunday from the work week.
  5. I’ve almost lost the cap twice.  Jawbone should have sent a second one just incase you lose the first.
  6. The Jawbone UP feels pretty natural to wear, didn’t seem to disturb my sleep any more than my Fitbit wrist band at night.
  7. There doesn’t seem to be a companion web application.  I can’t seem to view my data online… only on my phone.  This seems weird.
  8. Last night my Fitbit said: 6hrs 46 minutes of sleep, Jawbone reported 6hrs and 44 minutes.  –> Jawbone UP is awesome in that it shows you when your alarm went off and how long you remained asleep afterwards.  I also love that the UP set me into active mode after my alarm went off!

UPDATE 2pm Saturday

  1. As of 2pm on Saturday I’ve worn the UP wristband battery down to 10%  - I just got it and opened it up on Thursday night? It was only 80% charged when I got it.
  2. I’ve been obsessively syncing it with my phone – probably 3 times a day.
  3. After the Jawbone UP was connected to the charger for 90 minutes the red light was still flashing in and out an it never changed to a solid light.  I pulled it out and synced it up to my phone and it showed it was 100% charged.

Update 11:20pm Saturday

  1. Trying to sync the Jawbone UP failed, I tried multiple times after shutting down the app and opening it back up.  Unplugged and looked taped the end of the band to see the status light.  Looks like the battery is now dead.  Plugging into the computer to charge.

Update 1:30am Sunday

  1. After 60 minutes of charging the Jawbone Up on my iPad wall charger it finally turned the little LED to a solid light indicating it was done charging.  Hitting the hay now it’s been a long day!

Update 8:40am Sunday

  1. Tried to sync the Jawbone Up this morning so I could see how many hours of sleep I got last night and it wouldn’t sync.  Checked the LED and it was failing to turn on again.  Sure enough it wouldn’t hold the charge throughout the night.
  2. Returned the Up to the Apple store and got a new one.  An interesting side now I synced it as soon as I walked out of the apple store.  The battery level of my new one was at 63% out of the box.  When I got my first one it was at 83% out of the box…. that was 3 days ago.  Looks like if they aren’t purchased in ~10 – 12 days they will be totally drained of battery when you first get them.  Interesting.

Monday

  1. Device working fine.  Charged it at 6pm on Sunday – stayed at 100% through the night.

Tuesday

  1. Device still at 93% changed by 10am.
  2. Crap!  This UP also failed…. I’m in Seattle now and it’s about 5pm.  I’ve been walking around down town and airports and all over today, went to sync to see how much I was kicking my wife’s butt in our little competition and it failed to sync.  The UP wasn’t showing any LED response anymore.  Crap!
  3. Tried to charge – no dice.  Tried to do a soft reset – no dice.

Wednesday Night

  1. Called customer service and waited on hold a long time.  I was told that the solid red moon was a new issue and that they were sending me a label to ship it back to them and that they would send me a brand new device.  They wanted it so their labs could have a look at it.  I won’t get it for 7 – 10 days after they get it back :(
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A fantastic opportunity….

Posted on September 6, 2011 by JoshCork

A screenshot of my article over on Pareto Nutrition's websiteLast week I had the fantastic opportunity to write a guest post for Pareto Nutrition over on their blog.  It was a post that was part of their “5 Questions” series and it was a great experience taking the time to think back and reflect on how far I’ve come and to garner some support for where I’m going.  I appreciate the opportunity, thanks gang!

Check out the four hour body 5 questions article and let me know what you think!

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My 4 Hour Body Progress

Posted on September 3, 2011 by JoshCork

On Thursday my wife and I made the 50 minute trek up to North Scottsdale to do our “regular” bod pod body-fat analysis. I say “regular” because it’s been almost 3 months since we last went. A lot can happen in three months and we’ve not been disciplined about heading up there every other week. I was pleasantly surprised by the results. In the last ~3 months I’ve followed something close to Occam’s protocol from the #4HB book. I’ve spaced my workouts about at about 1 week’s worth of rest in between each workout. My total time in the gym is ~15 minutes each week. So what were the results you ask? Well in the last 3 months I’ve put on almost 6 pounds of muscle and lost about 8 pounds of fat! My progress on the scale only showed that I was down a couple pounds but I had actually lost a lot fat and put on a whole bunch of good calorie burning muscle over the last few months.

I knew I was making progress in the gym. My max weight at 5 to 7 reps has gone up drastically since I started working out in late May:

  • Close Grip Pull Down: 5/14/2011 – 100X11.8 Reps, 8/26/2011 – 150X7.3 Reps
  • Shoulder Press: 5/14/2011 – 100X9, 8/26/2011 – 175X7.1
  • EZ Bar Drag Curls: 5/14/2011 – 60X6.5, 8/26/2011 80X6
  • Squats: 5/16/2011 – 325X11, 9/2/2011 – 415X7
  • Incline Press: 5/16/2011 – 110X7.75, 9/2/2011 170X6

 Percent Increase by Exercise

  • Close Grip Pull Down: 50% increase in 104 Days
  • Shoulder Press: 75% Increase in 104 Days
  • EZ Bar Drag Curls: 33% increase in 109 Days
  • Squats: 28% increase in 109 Days
  • Incline Press: 55% increase in 109 Days

I’m fired up and can’t wait to celebrate making my goal in January. I’ve got to buckle down and continue to make solid progress each week by focusing on the end goal and being disciplined.

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