11 
A girl at a bar sees the futuristic and slim black cuff cradling my wrist, points at it and asks—well, more like demands to know—what is that? I look down, thinking I might’ve spilled beer on my sleeve, and see the Nike Fuelband. Oh. That thing.
To demonstrate, I hit the only button on the wristband and the LED lights flash awake. Green, yellow and red light explosions illuminate the word GOAL. Nice. I’ve reached my fitness activity goal for the day, and the Nike Fuelband is blowing digital fireworks to celebrate. I’m happy. The girl, with her high arching eyebrows, looks happy, too. But still confused. Let me explain.
The Fuelband is Nike’s foray into the crowded graveyard that is fitness tracking devices. Remember the spectacularly awful Jawbone Up? The Fuelband is like that, but thankfully, not spectacularly awful. It’s more like a Fitbit, but for your wrist—it’s a wristband that always measures your activity as you go about your day. That means everything you do—running, doing laundry, washing dishes, having sex—is measured and totaled up to give you an idea about how active you are on a daily basis. With the Fuelband, you can quantify the consequences of your lifestyle.
The best thing about the Fuelband is that you use it without ever thinking about using it. You set a daily goal, wear it, and forget about it. It’s that easy! The accelerometer in the Fuelband keeps track of your movement. To check your stats, tap the button on the Fuelband, and the previously unseen LED lights (there are a 120 of ‘em) will show you how many calories you’ve burned, how many steps you’ve taken, what time it is, and how much Nikefuel you’ve gained.
But, uh, what in the hell is Nikefuel? Nike says it has correlated movements of the Fuelband’s accelerometer with specific fitness activities, then created a way to translate all that into a Nikefuel number. It’s a way to bring everyone onto the same unit of measurement for activity—if you and an Olympic athlete ran side by side and did the same activities, you’d both get the same Nikefuel number. An even playing field, so to speak.
What I like about Nikefuel is that it gets you away from thinking about the net balance of calories consumed and then burned. It shifts the focus towards how much Nikefuel you’ve gained. It’s only a slight change in perspective, but it gives you a finish line to reach. Positive over negative. Be active, and good things—like losing weight—will eventually follow.
The Fuelband syncs with its iPhone app (via Bluetooth) and the Nike+ website (via built-in USB). There, you can log on to see pretty graphs of your activity history by day, week, month and year. Everything about the Fuelband is inexcusably easy to use. Even the battery endures. I got more than a week of usage off one charge (it’s listed at 4 days).
It looks like the future. Not in the Google Glasses wearing, overtly sci-fi future, but in a more utilitarian, this-is-completely-realistic future. Matte black with one single silver strip, it’s understated, yet interesting enough so that people, like that girl in the bar, are curious about what it does.
What it does is great. But a fitness wristband is only useful if you wear it. The Fuelband hits the perfect weight and structure balance—it’s about the size of a puffed up Livestrong band but much more sturdy—that you can wear it in any athletic situation without it weighing you down. The numbers the Fuelband spits out are on point, too. I literally counted steps on my walk to work and the Fuelband was right there with me. It’ll obviously have biases to arm movements but it’s accurate enough in day-to-day activities where if you don’t try and cheat the system, you’ll have a pretty accurate measurement of your day.
But the best thing about the Fuelband is how it keeps you mindful of everything you’re doing. Feel like taking a cab home after dinner? Wait, you should walk. Want to order delivery for lunch? Maybe go to the restaurant for take out. It’s a constant reminder to live a more active lifestyle. It’s like having a fitness angel on your wrist, you’ll be politely reminded to take the extra step. For the casual folks who love to cut corners and trend lazy, that slight difference in activity makes a world of difference. You want to hit your goals. You don’t want to disappoint the Fuelband. It notices your laziness, and it spits it back at you as numerical evidence.
It’s not perfect. The Fuelband isn’t for super high-performance, because some exercises just don’t translate to a wrist-based accelerometer. Workouts like yoga or weightlifting don’t tally up well. Riding a stationary bike won’t give you an accurate reading when compared to mobile exertion. Swimmers and surfers can’t even wear it—the Fuelband is only water-resistant, and not waterproof. There’s also no GPS, tracking so people looking to track their runs’ locations will have to look elsewhere. And finally, the app, though pretty, can definitely be improved—it feels too limited and constricting.
Yes. If you’re interested in becoming somewhat healthy in the future, if you’re looking for a wee bit more motivation to workout, or if you just want to be an active person, you should buy a Fuelband. It’ll help you stop being lazy. For fitness freaks, however, the Fuelband’s limitations might not be accurate or full-fledged enough to match your workouts.
Nike Fuelband
Price £140 (not on sale yet)
Sensors: 3-axis accelerometer, ambient light sensor
Display: 100 white LED lights, 20 color LED lights
Size: 5.79-inch (S), 6.77-inch (M), 7.76-inch (L)
Weight: 0.95 oz (S), 1.06 oz (M), 1.13 oz (L)
Love the idea, hate the price. Would have to be under £100 for me to consider it.
Yeah me too — whilst I’m not the biggest Nike fan around, I do like the sound of the Fuelband. But at that price, it’ll lose a lot of interest.
At that price, you wouldn’t loose interest. I’d become a higher involvement purchase, thus, you’d have to keep using it.
I went to the Nike store at Shoreditch wanting to buy a pair of new running shoes and ended up buying one of these instead. The gadget geek in me got the better of me.
For the most part, I’m really happy with it. I have been making a bigger effort to be active as a result, and the “Fuel” points are much better are motivating you than simple calories or steps – which wouldn’t work for a thin lad like me! (though you can still get those if you want).
They’re clearly priced a bit higher than they problably should be, but honestly considering how much of a demand there is currently you could at the very least get your money back and pocket a bit of change too should you sell it on. I’d expect them to reduce the price in a couple of months since it’s still somewhat in “pre-release mode”.
Oh wow, I didn’t realise they were on sale here in the UK already. Was it a full £140 you paid, then? I’m quite intrigued by this, I’ve got to say…
A full £149 hole in my pocket! And yes, they’re on sale from 11am every morning here: http://www.boxpark.co.uk/
The shop itself is probably worth a mention too. They’ve got Interactive “Kinect-ed” displays all around the store.
I really want this, but as I’m still in secondary school, I don’t think my parents would let me get it. Especially at that price.
I wonder how hard it is to make one yourself…
I think I’d still be a lazy bastard but just £140 poorer.
Little gizmos and gadgets like this Fuelband and Fitbit really are brilliant for motivating you into being more active. Personally, I was given a Fitbit as a gift and Ian first I was thinking “Erm… What’s this all about?” but in use it has been the single one thing that has pushed me to be more active and pick up with my running.
These types of things gamify your life. Even going to the shops becomes a bit of a work-out because you purposely park as far away from the entrance as possible so that you can beat yesterday’s grand total of steps.