Nike+ Sports Band Revisited...

I first did a review on this product a few months ago, which can be seen here:

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http://runningfatboy.blogspot.com/2008/06/nike-sports-band.html

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At that time, I like it as a product as it is pretty light on the wrist and feels just like one of those baller bands we wear as part of fashion statement or based on things we support (Fight against Cancer, Fight Against AIDS, etc.).

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It is a good product in that it gives you time, distance, calories, pace and at a very affordable price compared to that of Garmin watch (at just 35% the cost of a Garmin). Loading data to a computer is quite convenient too. All you need to do is pull it out and insert it in a USB port and you will see a graph of your progress.

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But now, I don't like it anymore and hope that Nike would come up (and soon) with a better product. The recently concluded Nike+ Human Race shows how much sellable this product is to the running community so I hope they improve on this..

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What went wrong??

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Simply, it breaks down easily. I had my first one for a few months before the USB got damaged somehow and couldn't upload the runs I did. It was able to upload some data, then can't finish it. So ended up just charging battery of unit (with data error). Pretty soon, inserting device to computer again will not even charge the battery, much less transfer data to computer.

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I had it replaced just last week and found out last night that my second one is damaged as well via the LCD display this time. I went back to Nike store but found out that it is out of stock for all Nike stores. So, I am stuck with my Nike+ Sportsband whose reading display I can't read but can just use to upload data. As of now, that is still operable...

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Just to show that it isn't just me that this is happening to, my girlfriend had hers changed twice and so had my sister. Their problems revolve around the LCD display too and weird as it didn't get wet at any time.

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I hope Nike would order these things soon and more importantly, fix the glitches in this product. They are nice enough to replace it for you but if they don't have the product in stock, then you will still be stuck with you Sports Band.

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This isn't happening in the Philippines only because if you go to www.nike.com and search for Nike Sportsband, it only received an average of 3.4 stars out of 5 stars from 341 product reviewers. You can read some of reviews done by the people who bought this item in the United States.

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For those people looking at measuring their distance runs, it might be safer for you to go for Nike+ Ipod Sports Kit which had average rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 stars from 57 reviewers or the expensive Garmin watch.

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For those people who already have this, I hope that you don't encounter the same problems I did with it as it is really a nice product to record your individual and weekly runs and see how well you did.

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And if anyone sees this at a Nike store in Metro Manila, please let me know where as still willing to give this product a third chance and see if this would be the Nike Sportsband that would last a looooooooonnnnggg time. Thanks!

Nike+ Sports Band

Running Fatboy has a new toy! And it's the Nike+ Sports Band

This super cool super sleek device looks like one of those plastic rubberbands that Lance Armstrong made famous with his yellow Livestrong campaign against Cancer.

I just bought a few days ago at Nike Store in High Street (at that time, they only have 6 pieces left and had already finished more than two boxes in a span of two months). You don't even need a Nike+ shoe to make the sensor work. All you need is a shoe wallet to put the sensor in attach the shoe wallet to your shoe and just run run run!!!

This device measures your pace, how many km you've run, the time you ran, calories burned and also the time. Best of all, once you plug it in your PC, it automatically shows you your run record and plots it on a graph. It shows you your record times in terms of longest runs, fastest time (1 mile, 10KM, etc) and last 5 runs so you can use this always as basis in setting your own goals and targets.

Very tech ware (wear?) but perfect for anybody as very easy to understand (Nike even made instructions very basic by only using pictures and no words...it's that simple!).

At first, I thought that battery lasts quite shortly as read somewhere that it is only good for 14 hours before you need to have it recharged via your computer. Not very practical especially if you have an early morning run. Good thing that wasn't true as battery life is based on 14 hours of running! If you do not use it for running, then it just shows the time and battery consumption here is quite low (after 24 hours and 30 minutes usage at the gym, battery is still full). So it is also good for travelling and no need for a watch anymore.

Things I don't like:

1. Once you use it for running, you can't see the current time so if you have no watch with you and doing a full marathon, you need to compute what time it is based on your running time or just wear a watch on your other arm.

2. No light feature for night running but think reason for this is to make it as light as possible so won't be burden to running so don't really mind...

Final verdict: Used at gym today for only 30 minutes (4.2km) but based on this, it looks okay. Weird though that its KM was short by 0.05km from treadmill so maybe have to start it few seconds before the actual run just to prepare its mechanism. Will try it again this Sunday when I do the Mizuno 15km challenge to give it a more accurate test. In the meantime, will just it wear everytime I go to the gym this week (which will be one more time...hehe)

RFB give it: TWO FAT THUMBS UP!

Tips for buying: If you want to buy one (think fast as may run out soon), use Citibank card for 10% discount (that's a whopping P300+ already). If you don't have one, look for a friend who does and plead with him/her to help you get this nifty product.