After seeing them about, I decided to get one of those Nike “FuelBand” thingies.
Basically it’s a modern pedometer, with flair. It tracks steps, calories burned, and it uses some algorithm to calculate “fuel points”.
It’s also a watch.
You set a daily goal of how many points you want to achieve. I keep mine set around 3000 (which equates to 10,000+ steps).
And after one week, I have to say I’ve developed a love/hate relationship with the thing. How do I love/hate thee, FuelBand? Let me count the ways:
Love: the simplistic design
Hate: that it’s too simple. Not enough cool options
Love: the easy Bluetooth sync to my iPhone
Hate: the Nike FuelBand website and app design
Love: the data tracking and graphs
Hate: how difficult it is to change some settings– like which freakin wrist you wear it on
Love: setting goals for daily activity
Hate: that you can’t seem to change the daily goal once it’s set for the day
Love: the instant feedback as to how active you are being
Hate: that it seems arbitrary on how many fuel points certain activities get
Love: that it acts as a constant carrot, making me choose more active things in order to hit my goal
Hate: how hard it is to hit the goal even when I’ve been really active.
Overall the FuelBand is good yet frustrating. Like the other day I did a solid 45 minutes on the elliptical (with arms!) and the band seemed to skimp on how many fuel points it awarded.
Or when I lifted weights and did pushups and got seemingly no fuel points for this activity (yet walking down a few flights of stairs gives me 100′s of points).
I guess the best thing about it is that it acts as a constant reminder of my weight loss goal and my need for increased daily activity.
Hell, it’s the proverbial string-around-the-finger. Only with LED lights and Bluetooth connectivity.
I’ll be very curious as to how many fuel points I can amass during a summer drum corps rehearsal.
Oooooo! Or camp!
I recall when the company I was doing a gig for enrolled us all in the Virgin pedometer program. Me, being the technically inclined figured out how to hack it. I had it showing me walking 15 or 20 miles a day. It was funny – because prior to my hack some office mates and I had actually gotten into a competition. Now at the time I was in fact walking about 7 miles per day. So I had the highest count.
Some caught up to me, but then I decided to go for ludicrous. So I rigged an Arduino to pulse the ferreed every 5ms or 10ms depending on the level of evil I was feeling.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kd1s/2836702955/
You have a penchant for wasting money on gimmicky crap.
What “other” gimmicky things, pray tell?
You really love your toys / gadgets…