Jawbone Acquires BodyMedia and Unveils New UP Platform
By Kelly Close
In May 2013, Jawbone announced the acquisition of BodyMedia and the launch of a new app platform for its UP health wristband, which tracks movement and sleep and syncs with iPhone and Android apps. The acquisition seems to be a good alignment, since BodyMedia’s FIT Weight Management System is similar – the activity-monitoring armband also tracks fitness and sleep. diaTribe has been tracking BodyMedia for a long time – see our test drive from 2010 here.
On the same day that Jawbone announced the BodyMedia acquisition, the company launched a new platform that will allow 10 other wellness apps to integrate with the UP activity app. These include various apps for tracking food intake and fitness (Lose It!, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal (which just announced an impressive round of $18 million of funding from notable venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins), Notch, Runkeeper, Wello, Withings), tracking sleep (Sleepio), improving habits (IFTTT), and managing health insurance (Maxwell Health). Unified data from all these apps can provide a more holistic picture of health and allow patients and health care providers to identify trends more easily. Eventually, we would like to see integration between diabetes devices and lifestyle apps, since both are important aspects of good glucose management. Also,look out for our test drive of the newest activity tracker to hit the market, the Misfit Wearables’ Misfit Shine. –NL/KC
