For this Nike Fuelband review, I am using a retail Nike+ Band in the medium size without any length extenders. I also take public transportation to commute to and from Manhattan every day:
So it has been one week since I’ve owned this device and there are definitely some things to be said about the little device. In today’s part of my Nike Fuelband review, let’s take a look at the physical design of the device and the web application from an engagement perspective.
The FuelBand Itself:
I explained last week how the device generally functions. After using it for a week, I’ve found that its barely noticeable, easy to use, and actually fun to check my Fuel score. What I’ve found to be most engaging with the physical device is the multiple “GOAL” animations that appear when you hit your Fuel goal for the day. The FuelBand is still new to me so my opinion of the animations may change in the future but I really enjoying seeing little pixelated explosions and rainbow-colored waves telling me I’ve reached my goal. This makes hitting my goal a pleasant surprise each day. Keeping the initial feeling of reaching the goal exciting is key for establishing habitual use even if the novelty of the visual aesthetics wear off over time. I do really enjoy wearing this on a daily-basis.
The Nike+ Web Tracker
Nike does a really effective job of making the web tracking application something to explore in order to further establish this fun and fresh feeling of using the fuelband. Each day’s activity is represented by various themes, colors, and sounds depending on your performance. Beating my 2000 fuel goal by a certain percentage greeted me with water-themed depiction of my day’s workout. I am very curious to see how many different kinds of days there to have based off how much I beat my goal by. It also includes a small space to write how you felt for the day with 5 different emoticons.
The user dashboard is full of information about what you’ve done with your FuelBand. Nike attempts to provide every metric an active person could possibly want:
- Fuel (Daily Accelerometer Activity)
- Your NikeFuel vs Your Age Group vs Total Nike+ Community
- Calories
- Distance Moved
- Steps
- Active Time
- Most Active Hour
- Streak of Goals Met
- Number of Goals Hit
- Total Progress towards Monthly Goal
That is a lot of information to come from a small device equipped with an accelerometer. Although, considering whether or not any of this information is helpful is a different story (more next week).
Thoughts on the First Week
When it comes down to it, the best parts about this device in my first week’s experience was just the initial delight in learning how all of it worked, how easy it was to use, and how unobtrusive it has been to wear it daily. The web application is very well designed and is effective in making my real-world actions translate into statistics for this “game” I’m playing. All the information being monitored is really fantastic but one of my gripes with the FuelBand is how some of the seemingly most important measurements, are actually worthless.
I do not think this makes the FuelBand itself worthless. My first week with it has been fun so far. I check my FuelBand pretty frequently each day and have wanted to hit my goals. Unfortunately, the goal I’ve set so far has not been challenging to meet! Despite this, I still have taken the initiative to be more active when I can because I know my actions are being quantified (albeit in an unclear way).I’m beginning to understand the niche of people the FuelBand has been designed for although it seems Nike has added some shallow monitoring features to appeal to a broader audience.
The FuelBand pushes you to maintain streaks of meeting your daily Fuel goal but that is only valuable if that goal is being obtained legitimately by being active. It may end up only reinforcing the act of beating the goal rather than the true objective of performing more physical activity. I still think the FuelBand can be very useful if approached correctly as I recognize there is a difference between using this device to exercise more or being more physically active. It comes down to some responsibility of the user to make the FuelBand work for them.
In summary, initial engagement of the Nike FuelBand is excellent. Daily use is unobtrusive and the Nike+ dashboard displays a wealth of information in a way that makes the FuelBand feel like real game. The true test is the long-term engagement capability of the FuelBand. Personally, I want this to be a device that encourages me to move more, not necessarily exercise. If you are thinking about purchasing this device consider what goal it is you’re trying to achieve with it. Read my post next week to see an in-depth look into the metrics and how to use these engagement features to your advantage.
Check out the gallery to see my progress so far and how the Nike+ Dashboard works:
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