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Jawbone launching return program for Jawbone Up: earn free refund and keep the band

Jawbone’s CEO Hosain Rahman has published a blog post stating his deepest regrets for some of the issues the Jawbone Up has been having. Users have experienced the band not holding a charge or bricking completely. To make up for the problems, Jawbone is launching a return program December 9th that will allow users to get a refund for the product and even keep it — no questions asked. That’s right, you’re getting the Jawbone Up for free if you’ve already purchased it. The refund program will be located here. Jawbone has also decided to halt sales of the band.

Last week, we reviewed the Jawbone Up — the fitness band we leaked the details for in September — and gave it a pretty positive score, since ours hadn’t broken. The band gave us great results when it came to tracking our daily steps and sleep patterns. But for the customers who bought the band and saw that it was breaking, it was far from worth the $99. Luckily, Jawbone was exchanging defective bands.

CEO Rahman cites the issues with the band were specific capacitors in the power system that wouldn’t let the Up hold a charge for long at all. Here’s to version 2.0!

We’ve embedded the post after the break:

Earlier this year, we unveiled Jawbone’s vision to help people live a healthier life with UP. We’ve been thrilled by the passionate response to this product. We heard from tens of thousands of you through emails, tweets, blog posts and on our forums about how you’re changing your lifestyle and becoming consumers of your own health. In just four weeks, UP users have collectively taken over three billion steps, gotten more than 300 years of sleep and captured hundreds of thousands of meals.

While many of you continue to enjoy the UP experience, we know that some of you have experienced issues with your UP band. Given our commitment to delivering the highest quality products, this is unacceptable and you have our deepest apologies. We’ve been working around the clock to identify the root causes and we’d like to thank everyone who has provided us with information and returned their bands to us for troubleshooting. With your help, we’ve found an issue with two specific capacitors in the power system that affects the ability to hold a charge in some of our bands. We’re also fixing an issue with syncing related to the band hardware. Typically, these issues surface within the first seven to ten days of use. The glitches are purely performance related and do not pose any safety risk.

We’ve also received helpful feedback on the application experience, including bug reports, ways to make signup and finding friends easier, user interface suggestions and new feature requests. Your comments are invaluable as we continue to improve, so please keep them coming and check back frequently for updates to ensure you’re always enjoying the latest features and enhancements.

We recognize that this product has not yet lived up to everyone’s expectations – including our own – so we’re taking action:

The UP No Questions Asked Guarantee

This means that for whatever reason, or no reason at all, you can receive a full refund for UP. This is true even if you decide to keep your UP band. We are so committed to this product that we’re offering you the option of using it for free.

The program starts December 9th and full details can be found at http://www.jawbone.com/uprefund

For most of you, this program is simply meant to offer peace of mind. Please continue to enjoy your UP band and keep sharing your experience with us. If you encounter any problems with your UP band, contact Jawbone directly for your choice of a replacement and/or refund under this program. It’s that simple.

Jawbone remains deeply committed to addressing all issues with UP, investing in the category and giving our customers the tools to live a healthier life. We’ve temporarily paused production of UP bands and will begin taking new orders once these issues have been sorted out. In the meantime, we’ll continue to release app updates for existing users.

We regret any disappointment we’ve created for our community of users and appreciate the trust you’ve put in us. The fact that you’ve taken the time to talk with us and help us make a better product is simply phenomenal. Our customers have always been part of our team and we’re incredibly grateful for that.

Please know that we’re doing – and will continue to do – everything we can to make things right. This is just the beginning for UP and we are excited to keep improving until we realize the powerful vision of what this category can be. 

If there is absolutely anything else we can do for you, please let us know.

Hosain Rahman

CEO

Jawbone

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