Jawbone is largely hailed as one of the most prominent fitness tracking companies in the world, but of late, its trackers have been somewhat disappointing.
To remedy this, the company has announced a software update that is aimed at fixing "all the problems people hate" about its fitness trackers. The announcement was made at IFA 2015, following extremely disappointing reviews of the new Up3.
"We've addressed all the issues that people have said they want us to address," said Jawbone spokesperson Jim Godfrey in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Much of the disappointment surrounding the Up3 and Up4 had to do with the devices' much-hyped sensors aimed at tracking heart rate, skin temperature, respiration and so on. According to reviews, the sensors did not live up to the hype, with some saying that it doesn't do many of the things that it is supposed to and that the things that it does do, it doesn't do very well.
Before the update, the devices would only measure heart rate while the user was asleep, or the user's "resting heart rate." Now, it will track what's called the "passive heart rate." Users will not be able to see their heart rate in real-time like other fitness trackers, however, the device will measure heart rate every 20 minutes and graph out the results. The idea is that this will allow users to see how things like stress and caffeine affect their heart rate.
Another big issue that users had was that they had to manually tap on the device to put it in "sleep mode" before they went to sleep. Now, the device will automatically detect when the user has fallen asleep, making it easier to use.
While Jawbone hopes that the changes will be the solution users have been looking for, Godfrey went on to say that it's not done making changes just yet.
