Power problems

While I'm excited by the idea of 24/7 wearables, my experience over the past year has not been great.

My Jawbone Up wasn't robust enough to last 3 months, while I lost my Fitbit One within a month. My Fitbit Flex has done better than both, but now requires some card to be jammed into its proprietary charging dock to charge.

What is it with wearable makers and proprietary charging docks/cables?

In other 'bad battery' news, I've been trying out the Moves smartphone software, which was recently purchased by Facebook.

It works okay, but is a total battery drain; it's usually the largest singler battery user on my Nexus 5 at around 30 percent, and - of course - I don't carry my phone with me much either, so it's not even tracking most of my movement. 

Fitbit and Samsung market leaders in fitness bands and smart watch sector, reckons Canalys

ABI Research recently licked its finger and raised it to the breeze, predicting 90 million wearable devices will be shipped in 2014.

Now rival market intelligence outfit Canalys has got more specific (if more pessimistic), suggesting 17 million wearable bands will ship in 2014. It reckons 9 million will be fitness bands like Fitbit Force, while 8 million will be smart watches like Pebble.

Shipments are predicted to rise to 23 million units in 2015; a 35 percent rise.

Looking at the current situation, Canalys has considered the market share of the key competitors in each sector. For what it calls "basic wearable bands", it gives Fitbit a 58 percent of the global market, followed by Jawbone at 21 percent.

That's probably about right as general consensus - which I agree with - is that Fitbit's devices are the best, with Jawbone, Nike and the rest struggling to catch up.

Surprisingly, however, Canalys thinks that Samsung is leading when it comes to smart watches. This is surprisingly, as though the company has spend tens of millions of marketing dollars, its Galaxy Gear watch is generally considered to be useless.

Similarly, devices from second placed Sony have not found much critical acclaim, leaving Pebble - in third place with 16 percent market share - in a stronger position than the numbers suggest.

Chinese life insurance company to reward active users via wearable bracelet monitoring

A couple of weeks ago, I pondered the Chinese market for wearables, noting that one of the current big players had effectively copied Jawbone's Up bracelet.

It recently received a version 2.0 update and indeed so has Codoon's sport bracelet.

Priced at RMB 399 (around $65), it now has a LED display - more like the Nike+ Fuelband, and supports Baidu's cloud service to save data remotely.

More significantly, however, is the news that Codoon has linked up with Taikang Life Insurance to reward users who are active - as proved by the bracelet. This happens thanks to a new virtual currency, which converts into physical items.

It's an approach that I'm sure will become more popular, initially in the fast-developing Chinese fitness market, but eventually in western markets too.

[source: Technode]

Why China will be the key market for wearable computing

Given that pretty much every piece of wearable consumer electronics is made in China, it should be no surprise that Chinese companies are getting in on the act.

Of course, one element of this is copying western designs.

Although it's one of the leading wearable companies in China, Codoon's sport bracelet is "clearly inspired" by Jawbone's Up, even down to the jack-in syncing method and the sun/moon lights for active/sleep mode.

Still I love the Google Translate description on its website: "Smart bracelet fits your lifestyle, inadvertently revealing your life in the pursuit of health".

'Inadvertent revealing' is exactly what wearable computing is all about when it comes to self-monitoring.

Nation of billons

More generally, though, it will be fascinating to see how wearable computing impacts the Chinese market. There are four reasons I think the sector will be vitally important.

One, Chinese manufacturers can make and distribute such devices very cheaply.

Two, the Chinese are suffering a health timebomb, especially with respect to obesity.

Three, the Chinese health care system is going to be revolutionised over the next decade as the burden of cost shifts from individuals and families (hence the high savings rate in China) to the state. Wearable technology will be a key part of keeping costs down and better diagnosing problems.

Four, if the government decides to mandate wearables for health/cost reasons, it has the power to make it happen. Unlike in the west, personal privacy concerns will not be a barrier to widespread adoption in China.

In that context, it's also significant that Baidu - often viewed as China's Google - is heavily pushing its cloud-based backend platform for wearable device and app companies to hook into.

The wearable technology dilemma: Where's My Data?

Despite now being broken, I'm found my five months with the Jawbone Up bracelet an interesting period.

It's given me my first decent set of personal data, which is surely the point of wearable tech.

When it comes to five months of sleep data, it's not always so reliable as sometimes I forget to toggle into sleep mode, but at least I can see some broad data. September was a good month of sleep (holiday!). July and October weren't - too much travelling.

It is good to see that I've been getting more active.

Still, with my Up band now out of action, the sad thing is this data is now pretty much useless.

It's been said that the most important thing about wearable technology is that is has to be in a form that people will wear. Yet equally important is that you can get the data out of the system in a form that you can combine it with data from sensors from other companies (and even manually-inputed data). After all, over the years, we're going to be using equipment from various providers.

I think the latter will be a harder problem to solve than the former.

Jawbone Up strip down (and tape up)

I do not recommend you do this.

But considering my Jawbone Up band was broken in that I couldn't toggle between active and sleep any more (the lighting unit seemed broken), I decided to see what lies beneath.

I'd been interested in this every since the blue plastic covering had started to stretch, making the bracelet more uncomfortable and more likely to snag.

Cutting open the skin and it was clear that the electrical connection between the main band and the toggle/light unit had been totally broken. There were plenty of pieces of debris.

And as I cut further down the band, it's clear that the Up is not yet sufficiently robust to last for a year of normal wear. I've had mine since late May so it lasted just over 5 months.  You can see that the internal plastic frame was breaking in a number of other places too.

Still, I've stuck it all back together with tape and will continue to use it as a pedometer, if only to compare with the Fitbit One, which becomes my main monitor (for the time being).

Two weeks with Fitbit One

So the good news.

I haven't lost my Fitbit One yet, and week 2 saw more activity than week 1; something I can clearly see thanks to my handy weekly roundup email.

Indeed, my daily average was over the 10,000 steps recommended, although we know that as with other government recommendations, it's pretty much a random number.

What more impressive - for me at least - is that I did a 10km run during week 1 so I've clearly been more broadly active in week 2, although I have been travelling during part of the week so that will have a lot to do with it.

The only downside is my average sleep is down 40 minutes; again that's due to travelling.

However, in my even-running comparison between Fitbit One and Jawbone Up, there's been a big development. The Up band has stopped working.

Of course, this is after 6 months of use (compared to 2 weeks), so let's see how the One's operating in April 2014 (if I haven't lost it by then).

This also underlines a key issue with wearables. You have to be able to wear them all the time and they have to be robust and not easy to lose. 

Jawbone Up versus Fitbit One - first night's sleep

As with all big data projects, I want big data before properly comparing Jawbone's Up with Fitbit's One.

Still, here's a quick comparison in terms of one night's sleep.

The restriction with both systems is you have to manually toggle between sleep/awake settings by pressing a button. In the case of Fitbit One, pressing the button starts (and stops) a stop watch, so at least you can see exactly what's happening. In the case of Up, you're just toggling between a sun and a crescent moon LED on the device.

Another difference is Fitbit runs all its data through a website (and there's is an app), whereas Up is only available via an app. Personally, I think the website approach is better; certainly Fitbit's website is better than Jawbone's app.

In terms of the night in question, both devices tracked the same sleep patterns; 6.5 hours of 'sleep' with some 'awake' periods about an hour before I get up.

Up is better in terms of breaking out deep sleep (dark blue) and light sleep (light blue), although I'm not clear how accurate this is. Whereas One seems to be more sensitive in terms of highlighting multiple 'awake' periods, although I'm not sure I like the idea of its 'sleep efficiency' rating.

Still, I'll get a better idea of how the two compared when I've got at least a week's worth of data to play with. 

What a Jawbone Up looks like after 5 months

This is what a Jawbone Up activity tracker (£100, €130, $129) is supposed to look like.

This is what my Up actually looks like. (Yes, I've lost the cap too!)

Okay, I've now been wearing it 24/7 for five months, and am fairly active - football, running and hockey every week - but I'm pretty careful with my tech. I certainly don't wear my Up band in the shower.

But I'm really not sure how much longer it's going to last.

Maybe I should have bought a small size rather than a medium band, but the band is certainly losing its shape and the plastic skin is overhanging the button you press to active the sleep/wake mode.

(Or maybe the sleep/wake button mechanism is moving backwards within the band. It's hard to say which.)

Of course, this is one of the big challenges for wearable technology. We're going to wear it, and it's going to wear out. That's the reason most other companies have either chosen watch-style units or hard plastic frames for their trackers.

Other than the wear, however, I'm pretty happy with the Up.

Sure, the software could be better (iPad support anyhow?), but the software for any wearable tech could - and presumably will over time - be better.

NB: I think my primary request would be an option to manually add-in data, especially for the nights I've forgotten to turn on the sleep mode - happens about once a month.

I'm not a power user - so no food or mood tracking etc - but here's my data to-date. Sleep increasing, steps high. All good.