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Friday, April 20, 2012

Nike Fuel Band

I am Back!

First, I just want to acknowledge that I have been absent for some time. I have been working on my dissertation and getting a paper ready for a conference and thus time has been scarce. But I am back and I am going to try and get a few blogs out per week - one here and one on my experimental political science blog. Anyway, sorry for the delay.

Nike FuelBand

Since this is an electronics blog I am allowed to write about sports tech. I know it is not as interesting as the newest HD tech or Apple's "New iPad" to some of you... but it is interesting to me.

I am absolutely intrigued by the Nike FuelBand! See some videos here. Essentially, the FuelBand includes a sports tested accellerometer that is able to sense all movement (including tossing and turning in your sleep, running N* miles, and playing basketball) and turn it into calories burned and also Nike "Fuel", which can be compared across individuals. I am not sure exactly how "Fuel" is calculated, however. The device also calculates steps taken per day and can be used as a watch. It costs $149.99.


I already use Nike+ GPS on my iPhone when I run I absolutely love that application. I used to use the Nike+ sensor when I ran with my iPod Nano, but that became unnecessary with my iPhone 4 (the sensor did not work with my iPhone 3G). The Nike+ GPS app tells me the miles I ran, the route, maps the route online (and on my phone), lets me post my runs to Facebook, Twitter, and Path, gives me audio cues when I am running, changes the music to "power" songs when I choose, and tracks my progress writ large. The FuelBand, however, will track calories and steps all day for all activities and link with an iPhone app for increased usability!

The exclamation mark in the last sentence is unnecessary because it's not that huge a feat. So I wonder to myself... why do you want this so badly? Maybe it's the idea that it will "keep me on track" or "force me to see how little progress I am making when I slack off". Nevertheless, I really find this product appealing because it will provide me with data as to how active I am. 

Now if only Nike can create a device which tells me how many calories I consume. I use www.fitday.com to track my calorie intake, but it can be tedious at times. Of course I know the feasibility of this idea is low to nil. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about a new sport tech that has some use... or does it?

*For those of you that do not know, in statistics the letter N is often used as an indicator of the number of subjects, things, or whatever, in your sample. In this case it's miles.