Jawbone, the wireless gadget maker known for its headsets and more recently its speakers, is moving into a new area: health. On Wednesday, the company announced UP, a bracelet that connects to a mobile app to monitor your diet, sleep and exercise and make actionable recommendations.
The company is being coy on the details of the product, which will launch later this year, but Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman sat down with Mashable at TED Global in Edinburgh, Scotland to discuss the vision behind UP.
Rahman notes the opportunity is largely a result of todayâs lifestyles, with diseases that we contribute to causing (like diabetes and heart disease) now occurring with more regularity than communicable diseases (at least in the U.S.). The solution, he says, needs to be something that seamlessly integrates into our busy lives. âYou have to make it easy. I need something that works in the context of my lifestyle and tells me what to do,â he said.
To that end, the UP bracelet will automatically track your sleep patterns, movements and nutrition and provide that data to an app that in turn monitors and makes recommendations for improving your health. The first version, however, will require you to attach your bracelet to your phone to transfer data.
There will also be some social hooks. âTo me this is the killer app for social because if you look at the motivation statistics, we get motivated and demotivated by the people around us,â Rahman said.
From its description, UP appears to be a competitor to devices like the FitBit, though it would seem the deviceâs form factor — a wristband you put on, wear 24×7 and forget about — as a differentiator. Rahman said, â[Iâm] not super familiar with a lot of those products. Our focus [is] how do you get something that someone will always be on and use ⦠not try to replace their watch or change behavior.â
The company will have a big warchest with which to go after the health market. Earlier in the week, Jawbone announced a fresh $70 million round of funding from JP Morgan, bringing the Jawboneâs total funding to $170 million.
Image courtesy of James Duncan Davidson / TED
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