Update on Nike Fuel Band

I have been using my Nike Fuel Band every day for more than 1 year until this week.  I traveled home to Pennsylvania for Spring Break and forgot my USB cable so for the first time in the year I am not wearing it because the battery is dead.  I really miss it, but it did remind me to post some observations of my first year of usage.  I am on my second Fuel Band as the first one crapped out after about 7 months.  To be fair, it still worked fine with the exception of the button.  It kind of got stuck in the down position.  Nike was pretty good about replacing it, we went through the usual debugging process but they pretty quickly understood the problem and I had a new unit within a week.  Since that time it has worked great and the battery life on the new one is improved by a day or two.

I suspect Nike continues to iterate and improve the accelerometer algorithm which interprets motion.  I don't have exact figures to quote you but I have noticed recently that biking with the Fuel Band on my wrist is equivalent to putting it on my shoe.  I will do a test on the same route  with the same level of effort and report back but my sense is that Nike has adjusted the algorithms to recognize cycling and report more accurately.  

Another random observation is that the average Nike Fuel band owner has lost interest in exercise or isn't wearing the band.  I generally earn 4000 Nike Fuel Points per day and generally meet my 3000 point goal 6 of 7 days in week.  In my 50-59 age group the average points per day is less than half of mine and on average they only meet their goal 1 day per week.  Pretty pathetic.  I still wish the Nike Fuel Band was waterproof for swimming laps.  My exercise on swim days is significantly under reported.

All in all I am very happy with the Fuel Band, I would like to see some incorporation of Heart Rate and Waterproof on future versions.

Paul Speese