It has been close to a year since Jawbone’s new Up bands were announced, the release was delayed for some time and they were released only four months back. The bands do feature a heart rate sensor but they didn’t allow heart rate tracking periodically, users would only get resting heart rate and that too once every morning. Jawbone has released new features so now the Up3 and Up4 bands are capable of periodically tracking the user’s heart rate.
According to the company this “passive” heart rate tracking will give the wearer a better picture of their health and they’ll be able to see if other stimuli or their diet affects the heart rate in any way.
Another new feature rolled out today is the automatic transition from active to sleep mode when the wearer goes to bed at night, previously users were required to double tap the top of the band to set it to sleep mode.
Jawbone is also offering the Up3 in four new colors while the Up2, which costs slightly less because it doesn’t have the heart rate sensor, is now going to ship with a thinner strap and will be sold in six colors.
All of these features will be rolled out to the bands through a firmware update through the Jawbone app for iOS and Android later today.