A Great Watch For Athletes

Observations of a Nike Fuel Millionaire

As of this morning, I have 1,305,616 Nike Fuelpoints. I’ve accumulated them at an average of 3,240 per day.

In the time I’ve had my Fuelband I’ve walked 2.9MM steps and covered 2,298 kilometres (1,428 miles).

I leave the house every morning and I run through the same mental checklist:

• Keys?
• Phone?
• Wallet?
• Fuelband?

I’ve worn my Fuelband playing pickup games in New York, rafting in Montana, running through Sydney Harbour and getting my rib broken in an MMA class in San Francisco.

As I write this, I realise I wore it as I was getting married.

That’s right. I accumulated 37 Fuelpoints for walking down the aisle.

This isn’t going to be a review of the Fuelband. I’ve already done one of those.

Instead, I want to just share my observations from the past 12+ months of Fuelband usage.

It gets lots of comments. People, often strangers, always remark on it. Usually, I’ll check the time, and as people watch the LEDs light up and scroll sideways you get a moment of … “Oh wowwwww…”

Waiters, doormen, uncles, bankers… at least once a week it will be a talking point with a stranger.

This is a good thing.

It’s A Watch. The #1 reason I still wear it? It’s a watch. And it’s about 3% more convenient for checking time than pulling out my phone.

I’ve disabled calories and steps so I’m only every one click from the time.

But beyond all the hype and marketing, the Fuelband is a watch and it’s useful to me everyday for that reason, regardless of whether I’m thinking about #makingitcount.

It’s Me, Man. My Fuelband is my watch and it gets attention and it says something about me that I want to say about me to the world.

It is fashion.

It knows more about my health than anyone. The last time I saw a doctor was… maybe in the 2nd year of university??? Anyway, it’s been a really long time.

No-one really knows how healthy I am.

But my Fuelband does. This little device, knows more about my health than anyone or anything else in the world.

This is completely under-utilised and potentially, amazingly powerful.

Mood Tracker. The Fuelband has a mood-tracking feature I never use. Interestingly though, the Fuelband is a very accurate mood-tracker with 24-hour lag.

If, for example you saw that I’d had three days in a row of ~1500 Fuelpoints, I can guarantee you that I would have been mentally in a bad place for that same time period +1 day.

Fuel ends up being a happy/sad tracker, inadvertently.

Long legs are a disadvantage. It takes me less steps than a short person to walk the same distances.

I’ll take about 7,000 steps on an average day, which for a short person would be closer to 12,000.

Fuel loves short people and their inflated step counts. So when I see a short person whose daily goal is 5,500, I know that we’re probably exerting the same amount of energy.

I don’t really care about my goal. I probably hit my goal about 40% of the time.

I’m never sitting there at 5pm wondering how I’m going to get 3300 Fuelpoints by the time I get to bed. That thought lasted about a week and then faded.

I am more aware of the little things. Regardless of my goal, I definitely will move more on sedentary days and I am certainly aware that I’ll be getting Fuel for it.

On long US-AU flights, I’ll walk around lots more during the stopovers and be checking my Fuel to see how inactive I’ve been.

Nike Knows Product. The sample size is small, but I tend to hear that Fitbits get lost, UPs break and Fuelbands brick.

My Fuelband though, is still going strong.

Crazy-good battery life. Has kept working even though I’ve given it a real workout by wearing it through everything. And it’s never once broken or bricked (or got lost, since it’s click-locked to my wrist).

For a 1st Gen. device, my hat goes off to the Nike product team for their smarts in making a device that lasts.

The Design is Under-Rated. At first glance, you might look at a Fuelband and say, that’s a bit chunky. But the design is really under-rated. Having the display be evenly-spaced LED lights.

The simplicity of the goal progress light bar.

The single button to control everything.

The bevelling on the edges to make it comfortable for the wrist. The way the sizing allows for comfort and the flexibility to move it up and down the wrist as you move around.

The clip. The unclip. The USB connectivity.

The device is a great example of how well Nike does design.

A great outdoor campaign. I used to love it last summer as I would exit the W4th St subway seeing the entire walls covered in fuel imagery. I really like Fuel’s outdoor branding.

Why not something else? People often ask me, why not an UP? Why not a Fitbit? I think an UP would break if I subjected it to a week of my life. I have a Fitbit but I don’t care about steps and find Fitbit’s software experience dismal.

A Lack of Functionality. In a side-by-side with the UP, the Fuelband does much less and its app lags behind.

But it’s functional for me in two important ways — it tells the time and it doesn’t break. That’s enough to keep me loyal.

Colour. Nike are the kings of colour. I would expect they’ll move to add a wider array of colours and designs as the band gets smaller and more feminine.

Mode. The Fuelband is pretty inaccurate when it comes to tracking my Fuel in regards to weightlifting vs. tennis vs. cycling for example. I don’t care that much, but I know many people do. I anticipate you’ll soon be able to change your ‘mode’ on the band to allow it to track your Fuel more accurately.

The Software & Social Piece. The ‘app’ experience hasn’t moved much in the past year and UP has lapped it a couple of times. Again, this doesn’t bother me, but I know many others feel differently.

I sync once a month roughly, so the social piece doesn’t come into it. Until syncing is happening more real-time, the social experience won’t greatly improve.

My Relationship With The Brand. After a year with the Fuelband, I think differently about Nike. I’ve spent more time learning about their designs in other areas, like for example, the Roshe, the KDVI and the AirMax.

If you think about the intimacy of the Fuelband to my life, that it’s constantly with me, on my body, and that it’s a Nike device, it says something about the opportunity wearables companies have to build meaningful relationships with their customers.

Nike, so far, has done little to build on this. After a million Fuelpoints? Nothing.

Same crazy cockroach.

No congrats… no email… no free headband or discounted AirMaxes. This seems to me a huge (missed) opportunity.

Where to from here? I’ll keep wearing the Fuelband. I think a sleeker model is on the horizon. Logically, GPS, heartrate monitoring and skin perspiration levels could all play a bigger role in defining my health footprint.

Surely this is Nike’s frequent flyer/loyalty opportunity too — a bridge to connect customers with products they’ll love.

As with Internet TV, I see the wearables space evolving incrementally for the next 3-5 years, and for now, I’ll be hanging my hat with Nike and the Fuelband experience.

Here’s to another million.