Nike FuelBand: The Craziest Exercise-Related Gadget Your Wrist Will Ever Wear

FuelBand? Well, we've heard of stranger names for products, and perhaps Nike's attempting to catch a few odd stares here. The athletic company just announced a new wristband that tracks and measures everyday movement to motivate and inspire people to be more active. Activities can now be measured through a new metric called NikeFuel: the more active you are, the more NikeFuel you earn. Designed to be worn throughout the day, the ergonomic, user-friendly NIKE+ FuelBand uses accelerometry to provide information about different activities through movement of the wrist via a LED dot matrix display. Four metrics are available: Time, Calories, Steps and NikeFuel. Unlike calorie counts, which vary based on someone's gender and body type, NikeFuel is a normalized score that awards equal points for the same activity regardless of physical makeup.


Users set a daily goal of how active they want to be, and how much NikeFuel they want to achieve. The NIKE+ FuelBand displays a series of 20 LED lights that go from red-to-green as the user gets closer to their goal. The FuelBand syncs with the Nike+ website through a built-in USB, or wirelessly through Bluetooth to a free iPhone app, to record activity and track progress every day. The app interface also provides encouragement and motivation as goals are achieved.


The Nike+ Fuelband will be available for preorder starting January 19th in the US at Nikestore.com for a suggested retail price of $149, and hopefully they won't have the same durability issues that the Jawbone Up had...