Will that late-afternoon latte make it harder for you to get to sleep tonight? Jawbone's new caffeine-tracking app can tell you, letting you know how your caffeine intake may be affecting your sleep patterns.
Called UP Coffee, the app cleverly displays how much caffeine is currently in your system with a graphic that looks like a flask filled with droplets. Every time you have a caffeinated drink — not just coffee as beverages like soda and tea are included as well — just tell the app, and more droplets pour in. As the flask fills up, a small analog-style needle will creep ever closer to the "Edgy" zone, letting you know you might want to take a, um, coffee break.
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Clever visual elements aside, the app is able to chart how the caffeine in your system ebbs over time, and whether or not it'll be down to a low level by bedtime. If you happen to own one of Jawbone's UP wrist trackers (either the regular version or the UP24), the app can work with the main UP app to give you insights over time about how your caffeine intake correlates with your sleep patterns.
Jawbone's coffee tracker is a good example of the company's philosophy toward data and how it can help users live better. The app surfaces caffeine factoids and tips when you use it (did you know decaffeinated coffee still has caffeine?), giving users the information they need to potentially alter their behavior in an effort to "optimize" their daily lives.
"Life is made up of thousands of little decisions," says Travis Bogard, vice president of product management and strategy for Jawbone. "Behavior change is about these small micro-decisions that we make throughout the day and changing a number of those over time. That's what we're trying to solve."
The app also serves as a kind of "on ramp" to the UP ecosystem, since you don't need a tracker to use it. It's not a bad idea — there aren't many beverages more universal than coffee, and the app is more focused than Fitbit's attempt with MobileTrack to have "Fitbit without the Fitbit."
In addition to UP Coffee, the company is releasing a new version of the main UP app today. Version 3.1 adds sunrise/sunset data to sleep and movement graphs. The feature that vibrates the bracelet to coax the wearer to walk has been expanded to a general reminder function that users can program to buzz them at various times. There's also a subtle change in terminology: Deep Sleep is now Sound Sleep, which is more in keeping with scientific analysis.
Jawbone says it'll update its Android UP app at a later date.
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