[mike3legs]

Just spotted this on the BBC website. Looks quite interesting for people with Ipods.

 

[Hollywood]

A thing of beauty - and at $29 definitely a mass market product. If you go to the Nike plus site they've got quite a lot of info on it - including some soundbites from Paula and Lance.

Shame you have to buy special shoes for it though :-/

 

[Chappers]

the sensor does work without the nike plus trainers. great gadget if you already have the nano.

 

[Hollywood]

the sensor does work without the nike plus trainers. great gadget if you already have the nano.

I know you can't have had it long but please tell us more! How accurate are you finding it? How many options are there? What's the power song feature like? How annoying are the voices in your head?

 

[Dronach]

Bought one today because of rave reviews I've heard in another place. Reports are that it is very accurate - tested against garmin etc. Can't wait to have speedometer in my head

 

[Nick B]

I'm in the market for some new trainers, have an iPod nano and also in the market for some speedo/pedometer hardware. Is it worth getting this? Are there any impartial or negative reviews of it?

 

[Nick B]

I bought one yesterday from Niketown along with some trainers to go with them. Thought I'd just make a post to answer the questions already posed and give some information I was told by their in-house Nike+ expert:

I know you can't have had it long but please tell us more! How accurate are you finding it? How many options are there? What's the power song feature like? How annoying are the voices in your head?

The accuracy is about 93% without calibration. If you do calibrate it, it can get up to 98% accuracy. Options include:
-setting distance, time or calorie burning goals and tracking your progress;
-workouts with goals or open ended workouts;
-progress tracking at nikeplus.com;
-compete against people with the same hardware/software, think this forum could make a quite big thing out of that in about a year's time or so;
-powersong, personally I think this is a bit of a redundant feature for me, but that's because the music on my iPod is already quite motivational, so I suppose it'd suit people who are listening to something mellow and a half like Jack Johnson or James Blunt and then when they're feeling unmotivated can push the powersong button and something like Survivor will come on;
-spoken feedback looks quite entertaining: you can set it to male voice/female voice or off. Even when its turned off, you can still get it manually by pushing the centre button.

I'm setting mine up as we speak and its going for a trial 10km tonight! I'm going to the gym to calibrate it on the treadmill, I figure that's probably the best way of already having an accurate distance.

Their Nike+ guru said about the types of shoes they were selling: At the moment the only running trainers out Nike+ enabled are for neutral runners, the next batch of shoes are coming out in September which will be suitable for specialist runners. Make what you will out of that, whether specialist shoes would be for overpronators etc or for marathon runners. He also said that in about a year, practically all of Nike's trainers will be Nike+ enabled, so it'll be as common as something like Nike Air.

Personally I'm very glad that Nike have released this product, it appears fantastic and I can't wait to use it. I'll give you another lowdown on how it fairs post-calibration and 10k! Nike will certainly do well out of this, as they've found a niché in the market and now that they've got a deal with Apple, they've just created a monopoly out of it so that no other company can really enter the market for the same type of software.

 

[Nick B]

Unfortunately I can't edit my post (or at least the option is not there) so apologies if this looks spamtastic.

I've test driven the trainers and Nike+ feature and they work well. I'm very pleased with them. Due to a request from Admin, I have taken a picture to show people what it looks like, how it works etc:

 

[Dan_R]

Thanks for posting that Nick, it looks like a really clever piece of kit. How does the sensor communicate with the iPod though.... radio signals? What is the range?

Cheers,

Dan

 

[Nick B]

Not entirely sure how it communicates, an educated guess would say radio signals or some sort of blue-tooth wifi system as there are warnings about making sure its dormant if you're flying. Not sure about the range, but as its designed to be for an iPod which is to be worn on an arm, I can't imagine there being any requirement when designing it to be more than 2 metres. None of the answers are in the user's guide.

 

[Dale the Snail]

I have a nike+ but use it without the trainers, as do many people.
There are lots of ways to attach the sensor to your existing trainers. I use the grey sleeve that came with the nano, put the sensor inside, fold it over, punch two holes ( one either side) and put it under my laces, threading the laces through the holes.
Other people use tape or velcro.

I great item for any runner. If you have an ipod nano it only costs £19.99

15 of us on RW web site have a challenge going on. We are all linked by the nike+ web site, so we can keep tracks on each other. Our first challenge is 50 miles.

 

[Nick B]

I think we should have a Nike+ challenge going on on this forum.

Who's up for it?

First to 200km?

 

[Dale the Snail]

Hi Nick

Very interested but I go on holiday Saturday. Can we leave it for a couple of weeks to drum up interest.

 

[Nick B]

Sure thing, I'll create a new thread in the general running section laying the gauntlet from September, hopefully a new thread will create more interest.