Nike just showed off the second-gen version of its Fuelband. For the first time, the fitness tracker is coming in a whole slew of colours. Here’s everything you need to know about the improvements.
The display is the same, the form factor is the same, but now you’ll have a choice of three shades of neon. It still has a single button and the same LED light. But the band is now sealed better so it’s more water-resistant. It will also give you hourly movement reminders, and you can double tap for your time. The SE has added Bluetooth 4.0, so it can be constantly connected with your phone so you know exactly how active you are always.
The app, of course, has been updated as well. Within it, you’ll now see an activity curve at the bottom of the screen that shows you how your level of activity has changed throughout the day. Here you’ll see some stats from day to day, week to week and so forth. Plus, you have options to share activity with friends and add location. A stats view will show you how much you’ve moved every week, and how much you’ve moved in a single session.
The Fuelband can now monitor Yoga activity, which it wasn’t able to do in the first iteration. It will also follow your sleeping habits. Within the app, there’s a new group section, so you could team up with your friends, for example to achieve a certain goal. Maybe you guys want to compete or something. You could do that here. Plus, you don’t have to buy a new Fuelband to get the new features — they’ll be available to all users in an update. But only iOS, because there’s still no Android app.
Nike brought some cool athletes on stage to talk about how they use Fuelband, including Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz, Olympic decathlete Ashton Eaton, and Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson.
In a planned Activity Break, Cruz and Eaton raced on a rowing machine and a treadmill to see who could earn more points, which seems unfair what with those being different machines. Eaton won, by the way, although with a team of two non-athletes (read: bloggers), Cruz’s team came out victorious.
Nike also introduced a brand new Nike+ app that leverages the iPhone 5S’s M7 processor to track your movements better, even without a band. It also showed off a new running app. All of these are iOS products — sorry Android.
Pre-orders for Fuelband SE are live through Nike now, and they’ll ship November 6.
