Nike’s auto-laced future
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28Wa5L-fkkM
[2] https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/05/nike-mag-first-look/
That would be my one and only criticism of this implementation. Beyond that, it's pure awesomeness, and I want a pair.
An engineer that didn't have a marketing department breathing down his back to drive "engagement" would just have the LEDs on the side also be buttons and tell the user to hold them for 10 seconds to put them in a configuration mode, but hey, if they did that nike couldn't force you to give up your email to use your shoes and then use it to send you spam...
a) You don't have a better solution, or
b) You have a choice to go elsewhere
If Nike made you go through their own network (a sort of a DRM if you will) to operate their shoes, that's something to be criticized, because it serves absolutely no other function than to lock you into their ecosystem and give them data on you. Anti-consumer practices should always be criticized.
Maybe if they allowed you to have two settings that you can control from the boot, it would be different.
So I guess some criticism stems from that Nike made something that should be simple and intuitive, into something that requires your attention and needs configuration.
It can charge the battery by generating electricity off the forces exerted by the wearer's movement.
Why can't the shoe adapt to the swelling of your feet?
If the software did control the amount of pressure the laces transfer to the foot instead of the length of the laces the shoe would adapt to feet of any size.
Just add a few more sensors and write more software.
The other is a BS problem in search of a solution.
On the other hand, the article points out that pro athletes have different needs than others, and these shoes (arguably!) address those needs in ways that other options do not. Also, the implementation isn't as dumb as the cynical might have assumed.
https://www.burton.com/us/en/p/mens-burton-photon-boa-snowbo...
It's unclear to me whether basketball shoes lack this system for good ergonomic/structural reasons or because of marketing/style/tradition.
I've had some Boa snowboard boots, and they've been good, but I've transitioned to non-ratcheting/non-metal quicklace systems. I find them somewhat more durable and easier to make fine adjustments to, while being nearly as quick/easy to use.
Experienced the same. Boa is pretty good, but it seems to tighten almost uniformly along the length of the cable. Which is probably ideal if your boot has a perfect fit to your foot, but otherwise becomes a pain in the, eh, foot. I have problems with pressure on the top of my feet and with the boa system it seems there's either too much pressure there or not tight enough around the legs. Might be resolved by finding the proper fit but laces are really more forgiving when it comes to that.
Tongue shims on your liners might help. A replacement heat molded liner is another option.
For whatever reason I've never been able to keep my shoes stable. They either start too tight and have to be adjusted or are a little too lose, thus reducing ankle stability. I would welcome these on strictly utilitarian benefits. Since I spend $300 every six months on shoes that don't wreck what's left of my fallen arches, this would be a lateral move financially anyway, I suspect.
Also, your mileage may vary, but my ankle instability was greatly improved by a basic "Starting Strength" style workout routine. I went from tripping over my own wobbly feet to lifting 300+ lbs on my back in just over a year. I've never had any notable ankle instability since.
Edit: Actually, turns out they have been already used in sports shoes, go figure! The aesthetics don't quite seem exquisite, but the functionality seems to be all there.
Mind you they'd have to have a reliable fall-back so they still work and are adjustable if (when) the power fails.
Edit: I was actually thinking last weekend when I think I over tightened my laces on my boots and my feet got quite sore that strain gauges in boots/laces might be a good thing!
That was a pretty common trick for combat boots before the laced + side zipper boots became more popular.
You don't tie as you would normal laces you create a knot on one end and loop it through all the lace loops then you simply pull and loop it around the shaft and the colar and tuck it in it was secure enough to even run in (as much as can one run with a full kit and a PRC-77 they had us chugging along during training) and traverse any terrain I had too.
I don't know how would if fare in very cold (as in sub zero) weather but then I had normal laces snap on me while trekking in Peru and Iceland as well.
BTW don't forget that while a bungee cord can stretch pretty well the shorter it is the more stiff it is so all of the bends in the loop essentially create a lot of short individual links that don't stretch as easily as the entire length of the cord unwound, you also need to overcome the friction between the cord and the tongue of the boot which makes this setup pretty darn secure but easy enough to pop on and off if your curl your foot and ankle and ease it in or out.
For what it's worth, though, I didn't find them that much faster to put on than normal three-buckle boots.
Emphasis mine. People scoff at a phone-connected shoe (which actually sounds pretty useful for the pro basketball application as described), but I think we can all agree this is worse.
Instead we have soylent, a nightmare corporate-government surveillance dystopia and ... plastic moccasins, and I'm supposed to be impressed.
I didn't anticipate it would be delivered using a markup language via a centralized solution, nor that it would be cluttered up with ads and irrelevant marketing bilge or press releases in nonsense like modern online magazines.
Bread and circus rather than progress is the establishments top priority
The tragedy is that nearly all of the problems we currently face would already be solved if we just invested in our future. NASA used to get 4.5% of our federal budget invested in it, now it's .3%. We used to invest $3 into research or infrastructure for every $1 in entitlements, now we spend $5 in entitlements for every 1$ invested in our future.
It's happening, though—just slower. Government money has aided the start of electric cars and alternative energy, and a Green New Deal has a chance of building on that.
And why stop at shoes? Bring on the auto-lacing corsets, self-buttoning shirts, and auto-adjusting belts (useful for large meals).
Yes I want self-tightening shoes, continuous belts (some exists, or close enough solutions, but still with the buckle), self-adjusting and tightening wrist bands, etc
And don't get me started on "button down" shirts, I actively prefer those with the rivet type fastener because at least they're trying
> Players, for example, will tell you that after about a half hour on the court, their feet will swell, sometimes up to a half size. This changes their comfort level significantly. So they have a choice: either play with their shoes too loose for 30 minutes or tighten them enough to be painful by halftime. Not with an adjustable shoe.
McGwire said he took steroids to get back on the field, sounding much like the Yankees' Andy Pettitte did two years ago, when he admitted using HGH.
"During the mid-'90s, I went on the DL seven times and missed 228 games over five years," McGwire said. "I experienced a lot of injuries, including a ribcage strain, a torn left heel muscle, a stress fracture of the left heel, and a torn right heel muscle. It was definitely a miserable bunch of years, and I told myself that steroids could help me recover faster. I thought they would help me heal and prevent injuries, too."
I have no idea about basketball but for mountaineering I sometimes re-lace my boots a few times after putting them on to get the tightness just right in the various places, and the same on both feet.
> When you pair, you’re linking your shoes directly to your Nike+ account, so there is no chance of anyone either connecting to or controlling your shoes
I can't imagine the weight couldn't be cut down to the same order of magnitude you're looking at for a shoe with strong support anyway.
Think it's called Boa lacing.
If a kid's shoes don't light up, they still function as shoes.
If you're doing distance training good and consistent lacing can be essential to your health
That's good.
I want to simplified the tightening lace, but it doesn't have to be auto. May be in a Pull Lever like mechanics.
When will someday people gets to hack the system and tightening up your lace just for fun? Would I have to update my shoes firmware as well. Or many of the Internet of Things we are going to have in the next 10 years.
2) They're actually designed to work in situations where you don't even have your phone as a primary use case.
So no, of course not. That was actually a major point made early on in the article. If you'd even skimmed the article, you'd have seen the answer to your question. :)
All new shoes come with 30 days free lacing on creation of an account. Lacing feature billed at $9.99 monthly unless cancelled. Model specific variable tightness DLC pack not included.
Wearing this shoe constitutes consent to our data sharing and privacy policy and acceptance of binding arbitration agreement.