Back on April 26 I reviewed my first year of wearing Jawbone UP with all its benefits and deficiencies. Two months later, on June 21, my band gave up the ghost as battery life suddenly dropped to a mere few minutes. Today I’m wearing a replacement - courtesy of Jawbone, and have a few more thoughts to share from the experience.
Considering how long the band worked well for me, I was one of the lucky ones:
Just got an email, my second @Jawbone Up band is dispatched (two previous died). Hoping this one will work.
— Peter Tuszynski (@dusker) May 9, 2014
14 months of nearly flawless operation sounds like an eternity, when some people had as many as five consecutive devices replaced in the course of a few months. If that statement sounds sarcastically, it should. I expect a €100+ device to easily last a few years accepting only gradual reduction of battery life.
Like many UP users have commented, the design and features make it a winner among similar bands. It’s fun and easy to use, delivers lots of information that helps me steer my habits in a healthier direction. But while the “designed in San Francisco” portion of the product works out really well, the “assembled in China” clearly needs a retrospective.
The warranty for Jawbone UP is offered only for 12 months. Pretty short, as electronics regularly come with minimum 24 months of coverage. I thought my Jawbone adventure was over, because I didn’t see the point in buying a replacement. Nonetheless, since there’s no harm in asking, I reached out to Jawbone directly and quickly got a response:
@mpaluchowski DM us with your email address! We'll get in touch to help out.
— JawboneSupport (@JawboneSupport) June 23, 2014
Two reset attempts and a phone conversation later I was offered a replacement. How? “As an exception”, I was told, because Jawbone “wanted to provide the best possible customer experience”. Fair enough and I’m happy to have received that kind of attention - that certainly says a lot about the approach of Jawbone towards its users. Still, I cannot quite understand why an exception was made for me, in particular. Why make exceptions in the first place? Why not extend the warranty to 24 months for everyone?
From my first contact with @JawboneSupport on June 24, my replacement band arrived a few weeks later, on July 17. Most of this time was shipping. Jawbone knew exactly what type, size and color I had and I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t need to provide those details.
The new band is distinct in a few externally visible construction details. The button feels differently and it is rattling the same way it must’ve for Zach Epstein, who’s article I linked to above. He had his band replaced due to the rattling, for me it’s not an issue.
I’m hoping changes go beyond the visible and something was done to improve the band’s longevity.
During this one month of waiting for replacement, one additional issue became clear. All this data that my body is producing and sending off to Jawbone to make profit from, there’s no way to extract it in case I’d like to move away from the device. No export feature, no official policy on how to grab it. I’m not even sure if legally the data can be considered mine. I’m sure it’s my own movements that produced it, but since it was processed by the band and application, can I claim ownership?
I’m not so much worried about the possibility of Jawbone selling off my data, as long as it’s anonymized, aggregated and properly controlled. But I sure would like to receive it when I ask for it. These questions will be coming up more often as more devices join the market and users begin ditching them and switching.
For now I’m hoping my new band will accompany me longer than the previous one, and for soon-to-be users of the device, I hope Jawbone will work up enough confidence in their product that they start offering two years or more of safety, replacements available without exceptions, just in case.