After reading Cabel from panic software recounting his experiences with the Nike+iPod sports kit I thought to myself, “I have to get me one of those.” I think Cabel would be a great salesman. After discovering the Nike + iPod group on Flickr, I couldn’t wait to get the kit, and told myself that if I didn’t get it for Christmas I would have to buy it myself. As luck would have it, I did get it for Christmas, and I’ve been “playing” with it since.
The simple overview
The Nike+iPod sports kit is a receiver you connect to your iPod nano, and a transmitter (containing a piezoelectric accelerometer) you attach to your shoe. Nike would of course have you purchase a pair of Nike+ shoes that has a pocket for slipping in the transmitter, but there are a plethora of solutions available for attaching the transmitter to other shoes. From the commercial:
And I don’t mean the shoes, but the pouch for the sensor. To the truly homemade:
image courtesy of Erik Forsberg
Once the transmitter is attached to the shoe, and the receiver is connected to the ipod it’s simply a matter of selecting a workout from the Nike+iPod menu, selecting a playlist, and going running.
During a run you can get voice feedback by pressing the center button on the ipod. A friendly female voice (or male if that’s what tickles your fancy) will tell you how long time you have run, distance covered, and current pace in minutes per kilometer. Like Michael said, it does to some extend feel like a personal trainer. On goal-based workouts, for example a 5 km workout, it will give feedback every kilometer. On time based workouts you get feedback every 5 minutes. I haven’t tried the calorie workout, so I don’t know how often it gives you feedback. I would like to be able to specify how often the voice feedback is given, but more on that below.
Before you can upload your kilometers you should have a nikeplus.com account, when synchronizing your iPod in iTunes it asks you if you want to upload your workout data, and prompts for your account information. From there on it’s plain sailing. After synchronizing iTunes asks you if you want to visit the Nike+ website where you can view your run, goals, and challenges.
The online Nike+ experience
Once you’ve gone for your run, synchronized, and visited the Nike+ website, you can view your run. Some of the pictures I have seen indicate that the Nike+ website for the US is a little different from the one available in Europe, but I’ll also try to cover those differences below. The Nike+ website is entirely in flash, a choice that I find frustrating since everything just feels slow. On top of that, it has a loading graphic before you can use the site which takes 5-10 seconds on a fast connection. An eternity of just looking at what is essentially a progress bar.
Once logged in, a banner at the top shows some stats for you. How many runs you’ve gone on, total duration, distance, and average pace.
On the Nike+ website you can view each of your runs as a graph of distance vs. speed. If you have a better run of about that distance you can compare the current run to the better one.
The website offers a nice overview of all your runs. You can view them either by distance covered, or duration. They can also be grouped by run (to show each run), by week, or by month, showing the total distance or duration for each week or month. Once you hover your mouse over a run (or group of runs) it will show distance, duration, and average pace of the run, and the name of the run if you given it one.
While it’s nice to be able to see your runs, the real force of the Nike+ experience is the goals and challenges. A goal can be one of four things you want to do before a given date. It could be to run a certain number of times or kilometers, it could be to burn some amount of calories, or it could be to run at a set number of runs at a specific average pace.
Currently I am working on two goals: To go on ten runs in four weeks, and I just started a goal to run 100 km in four weeks. My previous distance goal of 50 km in four weeks was way too easy for my current level, but a lot of different factors can keep me from my goal to run more often. I think I’ll try a goal of twelve runs in four weeks once this one is completed. My new distance goal is something I have to work at.
Goals are a good way to pressure yourself, but in the end you’re only competing against yourself. The challenges allow you to compete against other runners on Nike+. A challenge is, like the goals, some criteria and a deadline. Instead of trying to beat the criteria, however, all who fulfil them by the deadline win. The criteria can, once again, be one of four things: Distance, first to reach a given distance wins; most km, most kilometers by the deadline wins; tempo, fastest over a given distance by the dealine wins; and distance goal, all challengers must run 40 km. The distance races are cumulative, it is the total distance run over the duration of the challenge.
The challenges are a good way to motivate yourself, while you are sitting in front of the TV the other challengers might be out running. I do catch myself checking the challenge status just to see if someone else has clocked some km since the previous time I checked (three minutes ago). It is frighteningly motivating. I have yet to win a challenge, but might have my chance in one of the ones I’m competing in now.
What’s missing?
You might say: “That all sounds nice, but is Nike+ really the perfect workout solution.” Unfortunately, it isn’t. Although Nike+ is easy to use, and has a quite sexy web interface, it has some shortcomings that really bug me every time I access the site.
First and foremost the web site is completely flash based. An inelegant solution which makes it hard to impossible to link to individual “pages”. However, you can’t share your runs with other visitors so linking to them wouldn’t do you any good. Also, every time I visit the site it has forgotten my login and dumps me at the product tab. Once I log in I still have to navigate to my runs before I get to the things that really interest me.
The US version has a dedicated home for you once you log in. From there you can see your latest run, and have quick access to your goals and challenges. Furthermore, American users have the possibility of talking trash during challenges. Fortunately, I could get the US features simply by selecting the US in the country selector on the front page, even though I have my Danish address in my account information.
The biggest problem, however, with the Nike+ experience is that it is only for you. The social aspect of running has, apart from the challenges, been completely left out. Users have taken to other fora, such as Flickr which has a thriving Nike+ community, for sharing their accomplishments, and meeting new challengers.
What could be better?
First and foremost I would wish for the Nike+ site to be redone with individual standard XHTML pages. I wouldn’t mind if elements, such as the graphs, were still done in Flash. However, my suggestion is to take a page from the book of Flickr. In the beginning notes, navigation, and the picture specific buttons along the top of the images were done in Flash. Then the image pages were redesigned to use XHTML, CSS, and Javascript (we really need a word for this combination if one doesn’t already exist). For the Nike+ website this would also mean that each workout got a linkable page, preferably with a cruft-free URL, that you could share on your blog or email to your friends. As a user, you should of course be able to specify if any workout was private or public, and have default preference for this setting.
Individual pages would only be the beginning. Currently you can name your run, but if you use Nike+ as your training diary you will quickly run out of space. Again taking a page from Flickr, they should have a description field that you could use for route information, maybe you could even have training specific fields, for example rating for how the workout felt or the quality of the run. With a description field you could obviously make up your own notation, but that doesn’t mean Nike should stop thinking about what they could add. Nike already has training programs and diaries on the web, interfacing them with Nike+, or allowing you to make your own, would improve the experience immensely, especially for new runners.
The logical next step would be to include the social aspect. It is already leaking into the concept if you start lettings users share their workouts. Let other people comment on public workouts. Let users draw the route on maps. Partner with someone like Yahoo! that already has, and uses, this technology with flickr.
It might seem like all my beef is with the Nike+ website, but there are also things while out running that could be improved. The workout UI is very simplistic which is one of its advantages. The platform, however, is the iPod which should be able to do more things with the UI than a simple workout watch.
The feedback, for example on a 5 km workout, comes every kilometer in the beginning. Then the halfway point, and the last 500 meters it gives feedback every 100 meters. The problem is that the feedback is in the form “1 km completed” or “200 meters remaining”. For me I would be interested in my time each kilometer, it would help me a lot if I were trying to run a specific pace. Being able to specify the kind of feedback would be a huge boon.
That said, my biggest improvement suggestion to the running experience would be to design your own workouts. Since the Nike+ sports kit gets both your time and mileage it would be obvious to be able to design interval workouts. Imagine creating a workout which said run 200 meters, rest for 2 minutes, repeat 6 times. The iPod could then tell you “start first 200 meter interval”, wouldn’t that be awesome. I mentioned that the goal based workouts, for example 45 minute workout, gives feedback. However, the feedback comes only at preset intervals that you — as a user has no control over. If you are running a 4 × 6 minute fartlek with 2 minute rests, getting feedback every 5 minutes is not good enough. Being able to design your own workouts would solve this also. What would really make this huge, however, would be to incorporate the social aspect here too. If you made a workout that worked really well, then you could share it via the Nike+ website.
Conclusion
It must be said, the Nike+iPod sports kit is an elegant solution. There are aspects that seem a little rough, and could use a bit of polish, but it works, it’s simple, and it looks nice. That’s a good start. However, the social aspects with the challenges is what is the best part of the Nike+ experience. As Cabel wrote:
The second best part about the Nike+ running – the cool, video-game like part – is that you not only run, but you also get points for running. Your score ever-increases. Better still, if you set goals for yourself, you even get awesome virtual trophies and ribbons, resplendent in their vector beauty. Just like Pac-Man got to eat the occasional delicious (albeit high-sodium) pretzel treat in-between hundreds of dots, the Nike+ runner gets the occasional trophy treat in between the miles. As I understand it, a lot of people run for so-called “exercise”, but let me tell you: points are way cooler.
It is just a shame they haven’t gone further with that aspect. I believe a social experience around the Nike+ users would turn Nike+ into a phenomenon.
If you are beginning runner and have a hard time keeping your motivation, I would suggest getting the sports kit. Nothing like remembering that everyone else could be out running, pushing you donw the rankings, while you’re watching TV to get you out even if it’s raining.
Tags: Hobbies, Non-technical Computing, Reviews
Good, and lengthy, review. Although I do have to correct a common misconception. The sensor is not an accelerometer…
[…] Danish blogger, climber, and Mac enthusiast Jonas Rabbe has posted a thorough review of his new Nike+iPod Sport Kit. While Nike+iPod reviews are a dime-a-dozen these days, Jonas includes an insightful look at how the experience could be improved, which makes the review well worth reading. […]
I’m sorry Michael, but according to Apple it is an accelerometer. An accelerometer is simply a device for measuring acceleration, it does not have to be advanced in how it does it. A piezoelectric accelerometer simply converts physical shocks into electricity.
Piezoelectric materials are totally cool, and can also work the other way, by generating a shock (or jolt) if electricity is applied to them, this way they can for example be used in non-mechanic vibrators for phones (although the current materials do not generate movement quite strong enough).
[…] Original post by Jonas Rabbe and software by Elliott Back […]
Excellent excellent post. I’ve had it sitting in my bookmarks for a while, to give it a proper readthrough.
Essentially I’ve gone from “this is overkill” to “this is actually interesting” by reading your review. I’ve always wanted to know how long I’ve run, and I suppose this could tell me just that.
The big question now is: do I really need the Nike + iPod kit? Or would it be enough with simply a pedometer or something similar?
Some followup questions:
Finally, I agree that the Flash webpage should definately be remade in HTML. Flash just doesn’t work for website navigation.
Some answers to answer some followup questions:
And finally, A pedometer could work. The problem with a normal pedometer is that is measures paces, but your stridelength change depending on your speed, so it’s not necessarily very accurate.
One thing about the Nike+iPod sports kit is that it is not very expensive (especially if you have a nano already – I know you don’t, but still). There are also other solutions, for example from Polar. All the other solutions I’ve seen, however, have not explored the social aspects as nike+ does through the challenges.
Thanks for the update. I think I’ll look for other solutions. I still think it sounds neat, though.
Great article!
And the Nike+Ipod really works as a motivator…
[…] There is such a huge potential for a great on-line community site based around the Nike + iPod Sport Kit. Unfortunately you can only upload your data to the Nike + website through iTunes. At the time I was developing this website there was no method of accessing your running data (aside from following this manual process) or challenge data once it was uploaded to the Nike website. […]
I totally agree Nike Plus is a great motivator, and has got me not only motivated to run again but to also start a site that addresses some of the points you\‘ve made about Nike\‘s website and what it lacks. Check it out at http://www.workoutdump.com .
That said, my biggest improvement suggestion to the running experience would be to design your own workouts. Since the Nike+ sports kit gets both your time and mileage it would be obvious to be able to design interval workouts. Imagine creating a workout which said run 200 meters, rest for 2 minutes, repeat 6 times. The iPod could then tell you “start first 200 meter interval”, wouldn’t that be awesome.
I SECOND THIS!!