Last year, Bluetooth headset and speaker manufacturer released the UP wristband to much critical acclaim, only to pull it off the market a month later because of a defective design and numerous unhappy customers. The situation was so bad, Jawbone offered a "no questions asked guarantee", refunded all UP purchasers the full price paid, and allowed them to keep the device.



Today, Jawbone released version 2.0 of the UP wristband, promising redesigned hardware and a better user experience. The wristband is similar to the Nike+ FuelBand that Apple began selling last month.

The Up, which was and still is a flexible bracelet, had two distinct issues that led to the hardware failures and thus the returns, Bogard explains now. The first was that small amounts of water were able to get into the band, causing moisture and contaminants to break some of the internal technology. The second was that the bendable nature of the band caused some of the tech components to break; people were bending and playing with the bracelet more than Jawbone had anticipated. "In the last year we have learned a ton and we learned a lot from what became this beta in the real world. We got a lot of rich data from our users," Bogard explained. And with that the company built the next version of the Up, which is launching today in eight colors for $129.99.

The new Jawbone is available at Jawbone.com, Apple, AT&T and Best Buy stores. The UP app is available free on the App Store. [Direct Link]