Jeff always says we’re a Nike family, if it isn’t Nike, we can’t buy it. I’m only kind of kidding. When we first started dating, Jeff had a Jawbone Up band and had mentioned wanting a Nike Fuelband. So for our anniversary, I wanted to get us matching Fuelbands as a him and her present. But the Fuelband was unavailable in the color I wanted (pink) so I got myself a Jawbone Up so we could still sort of match. Somehow Jeff found a pink Fuelband and I ended up with one of each fitness band.

I thought I’d share my opinions/reviews of both since I’ve had them now for a while.

Fitness Band Debate: Nike Fuelband vs. Jawbone Up

Jawbone Up:

Features:
PRO The Jawbone fitness band and the associated app for your phone are pretty awesome. You have the option to set daily goals, for example reaching a certain amount of steps, sleeping so many hours per night, etc.
PRO The app gives you motivational tips on the home screen to help you reach your goals. Nutrition, exercise, and life tips to attain better sleep, more energy, and weight loss.
PRO The app also tracks your sleep monitoring how long it takes you to fall asleep, how many times you wake up during the night, how light or deep you sleep (and when), and when you wake up.
CON But I’m not sure how accurate this feature is because there have been a few times where I’ve gotten out of bed to use the restroom or get more water and it didn’t even track that I left a deep sleep.
PRO You can set a smart alarm to wake you up some period of time before your alarm is scheduled. This is to wake you up when you are sleeping lightly so you will feel more refreshed when your alarm goes off (because we all hate waking up in the middle of deep sleep and being grumpy).
PRO The app tracks your calories by letting you enter in the food and drinks you’ve consumed. There is a bar that shows the calories you’ve consumed vs the calories you’ve burned. It will show you the difference in calories you need in order to lose weight.
PRO You can also add friends to your “team” and compete with them in duels which makes it more motivating to get moving!
PRO There are a lot of associated Nike apps that sync with your Nike band and Nike account – Nike Running, Nike Training Club, etc.

The Up band:
PRO It has a comfortable/flexible fit and comes in a variety of colors.
PRO The Up band has a long battery life (about 13-14 days) which is great so you don’t have to worry about recharging it all the time.
CON But the reason the battery life lasts so long is the Up band has no real display. It doesn’t show you anything except one small light that tells you if you’re in awake/asleep mode or in a workout session. I don’t like that I can’t see my progress with my goals until I open the app.

Customer service: CON
I’ve had two issues with my Up fitness band which required contacting customer service. The first issue was two months after purchase it stopped holding its charge. I contacted support to help me fix the issue or replace the band and this is the response I received:

• Make sure the band is fully plugged in when charging
• Try a different USB port on my computer
• Try charging from a wall charger because they can’t guarantee the band will work through USB ports or a third party adapter

The band came with a charger from Jawbone so it shouldn’t be aftermarket. And the fitness band was charging fine, the battery just wasn’t holding that charge. At this point I don’t remember what I did to fix it on my own but I know I had to google it.

My second issue with my Jawbone fitness band was the end button fell off when I was sitting in the car on a road trip, at least I think that’s when because I never found the button. It makes me feel that this fitness band was made cheaply. I emailed customer support and never received a reply. Even if that reply would have been that they could not repair or replace the band, they should have said something to me.

Nike Fuelband:

Features:
PRO The app for this fitness band is also pretty awesome and very easy to use.
CON The app takes a long time to load and not all the data loads. So sometimes you won’t be able to see your previous days and activities.
NOTE: You earn “fuel points” based on your movement and activity to achieve your daily goals. The fuel points only show how active you have been and earn you badges for your Nike profile. You can’t redeem your fuel points for anything.
PRO The app keeps track of your total accumulation of fuel points so you can see how active a lifestyle you live.
CON I earned 2,000+ points on a 6 hour road trip one day (the same time that I lost the button on my Jawbone Up). Not sure what happened, but something was definitely off.
CON This fitness band doesn’t track your sleep – while I did know this ahead of time, I still think that’s a pretty cool feature.
CON You can’t track your food or calories throughout the day and receive no motivational tips for weight loss or exercise.
PRO You can also add friends to see their daily activity.

The Fuelband:
PRO It is comfortable to wear and clips securely on your wrist so you don’t have to worry about losing it.
PRO It comes with an extra clip so that if you’re in between two sizes or prefer it to fit a little looser you can add a link and make it a little bigger.
CON The screws on the clip tend to come loose making it more inaccurate in tracking your activity. I also worry that the clip will break and the fitness band will fall off (I know this contradicts the previous statement).
PRO/CON The fuel band is all black with some color accents which makes it more neutral. But I prefer more color.
PRO The Fuelband has a great display – you can adjust what gets shown but it can show the time, your fuel, calories, and steps. (The calories are an estimate).
CON Battery life only lasts 3 days, so I feel like I’m constantly recharging it.

Customer Service: N/A – no experience

Another PRO to the Nike Fuelband is being able to participate in Mae’s 2016 running challenge!

Neither fitness band is waterproof but both are sweat resistant, but it would be nice to track my activity in the pool. I have also noticed that each fitness band tracks my movement and steps differently. I wear them both and by the end of the day there’s a 3-5k step difference, which is about 2 miles! That’s a pretty big difference when you’re tracking how active you’re moving and how much you’re walking.

Do you use use a fitness band? Which one?