Nike’s making some incremental changes to its FuelBand SE to keep up with competing devices from Fitbit and Jawbone. It will remind users to get up and walk around periodically, allow them to measure specific workouts, and give them ways to measure activity when they do exercises like yoga or bicycling, which the wristband had trouble with before. As Fitbit trackers have been able to do, the new FuelBand also measures sleep. Nike’s device will be available on Nov. 6 for $150; the company will continue to sell the older model at a lower price.
Stefan Olander, Nike’s vice president for digital sport, also stressed the importance of NikeFuel, the mysterious and proprietary statistic for keeping track of your activity level. The company won’t divulge how the metric is calculated, although this much is clear: Unlike actual fuel, Fuel increases the more you exercise. Nike+ users set goals based in Fuel, which Olander describes as a “true universal metric that measures and motivates.”
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