Festive Cheer from EGC

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from eGaming Consulting!

Why not make a resolution you will keep and come meet us at ICE, 24th – 26th Jan.

It’s a busy event so email us at info@egamingc.com to arrange a time.

Jawbone issues refunds for its Up health band

Jawbone is issuing refunds and recalling Up wristbands and has decided to stop producing them for the time being. Why? Well Apparently they have problems synchronizing and issues with battery life. I have been using one for 10 days now and here is why I think they are back-tracking faster than Usain Bolt on rewind.

Jawbone UP: The concept  To be healthy we need to Move, Eat and Sleep, well. The concept of the Jawbone UP band and App is pretty simple: Track your steps taken, your workout, how you sleep and the food you take in and improve all these areas of your life.

The wristband and the app. The first thing to say is that the design and comfort of the band itself is really pretty good. It is in no way uncomfortable and comes in various sizes and colours with a rubberized finish and attractive silver trim.  Jawbone claims the UP is water resistant to 1 metre. I wore it in the shower and it was fine but not sure I would risk much more than that.

I was concerned about the cap coming off and it did on one occasion in a struggle with my fidgety 4 month old. This is a bit of a risk in my opinion and I wonder how long the cap will stay firmly attached, especially after some use.

This brings me neatly onto how often the cap needs to be taken off. Probably the most annoying thing about the UP is the necessity to plug the band into the iPhone / iPad in order to sync with the App. Bluetooth would be much better but of course there are concerns over battery life – which at the moment is pretty good.

Actually perhaps the most annoying thing is that the band does not charge off the device but rather through a USB port. This seems strange for something with no personal web interface. The app is where the reporting begins and ends.

There are 3 modes for the Up bracelet to work in: Active, Workout and Sleep. Active traces your steps taken, Workout, erm… does the same and Sleep tracks your sleep patterns and wakes you up. All of which you have to remember to manually switch between and all of which work towards goals or ideals you have set in the App.

I downloaded the App, which is straightforward and pretty clear to use. You can set it up your goals and challenges pretty quickly, find friends, add them to your team and even have common challenges. It looks good but there are occasional bugs such as the automatic landscape view not resetting when the phone is tilted back.

Move: Keeping active
Here’s the thing about tracking steps taken; the band is on your arm and I am not sure how accurate it is. For example I may be sitting at a desk talking in an animated fashion (I am half Italian) and my arms may be clocking up the miles whilst my lower body grows podgy in an office chair. The reminder to exercise may not be triggered because the UP thinks I am actually being quite active.

Eat: Concentrate here’s the science part.
Ah, who am I kidding? The meal aspect is a little unscientific, I mean very unscientific and is perhaps the most annoying thing about the Up. I was not expecting the app to recognize the food I was eating or for the bracelet to sense the calories of it but to simply take a photo and then assign an emoticon to it feels a little shit cheap. I live outside the UK and on the rare occasions I get to have a full English breakfast I feel absolutely elated! Firstly there was no emoticon for “absolutely elated” and secondly it’s probably not what my arteries are feeling. Oh and in all honesty I never remember to add my meals.

Sleep: Wake Up
So this is probably the highlight of the UP. Switch it to sleep mode and the band records your sleep patterns and wakes you around about the right time during a light sleep phase.

This works. I set my ideal sleep to 8 hours per night, my alarm to 7.30 and let the Up do its work. It duly informed me of the percentage of the required sleep I was getting, showed me how light my sleep was in general, gave it a paltry score and woke me up during a light sleep at just after 7 a.m. every morning.

So it works. Or at least it wakes you up half an hour before your alarm so you think it works. 

Getting Social
I probably missed out on this aspect as I only have one other friend using it and his enthusiasm waned after approximately 2 days. You can set up challenges for groups of people and track progress which could act as a motivational tool, you can see who much action your mates are getting by studying their (slack of) sleep patterns.

You can share workouts, meals and sleep on your Up profile but not apparently to Twitter, Facebook or other Social Media.

So why are they refunding? 
In the words of Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman’s; “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.”… oh and you can have your money back if you return the band… or come to think of it, even if you don’t just don't say you expected it to actually do something.

I paraphrase (made up some of) the last bit of course.

I did not have any problems with battery life or synchronizing but it just creates an annoying feeling (did I mention that?). It doesn’t do what you would hope it would do, it doesn't really do anything and I feel kind of stupid for imagining it would.

It is a nice idea, it could even be the future but for now I think I will only use it as an alarm, assuming it continues to wake me up 30 minutes before the set time. At least until this gets annoying.

EGR 2011 Operator Awards: a night of Awards, Amusement and Alcohol

The online gambling industry waved goodbye to November and welcomed December with the EGR 2011 Operator Awards, hosted by the one and only Rufus Hound – who, to my pleasant surprise was very good. A whopping 28 awards were dished out by Rufus and the various award sponsors.

The night was held in the glitzy city of London at the Artillery Garden at the HAC in a marquee that a Russian circus would be jealous of; adorned with colourful birdcages, butterflies, feathers and fairy lights the dark navy and black interior was redolent of Moulin Rouge. 

Dinner was a delicate 3 course meal with an interesting choice of upbeat Balearic tunes which turned astonishingly to hip hop before the awards began. Rufus Hound didn't pull any punches, getting stuck into the partisan audience and what could have been a study in narcissism was actually a light-hearted and enjoyable event. Rufus got the audience to laugh, cheer and even boo at William Hill. He did fail to get all the guys in the crowd to join his cheering but generally congratulations go to the organisers for booking a good host.

Thomas Smallwood from eGaming Consulting presented the award for Best Marketing Campaign of the year, to Gamesys (Jackpotjoy) who’s advertisement features the iconic Barbara Windsor in a multi million pound campaign. Check out the link below to see the Queen of Bingo herself in action.

There were too many awards to go through each one here but to note was the award for Best Mobile Operator of the Year Award, presented by Cozy Games, which went to Betfair, Paddy Power was Awarded Social Networking Operator of the Year for their consistently great use of Social Media and, after a night of friendly jibes, the Operator of the Year saw William Hill being crowned. A full list of winners can be found here.

The night ended with Dodgems and a rapid-fire poker tournament, sponsored by Instadeal Poker, the newest and fastest mobile poker to hit the internet. The winner was the glamorous Sarah Carruth from Rank Interactive. She defeated every single gentleman at the table to take home the iPhone 4 GS generously provided by InstaDeal.

The other winners were:
2^nd Richard Abbots from Continent 8 – took home a bottle of Lagavulin 

3^rd Nick Kowalski from Little Star Media – a bottle Champagne

4^th Richard Heade from Betclic – A Teddy Bear. Awww!

Overall it was a great event. Despite the cold outside the warm and vibrant tent thronged with 700 plus people chatting and indulging in the free wine, beer and cocktails. Networking was enjoyable and it really was well worth going to.  

Looking forward to next year's EGR Awards!