Posts tagged with 'nike'

Last week, I decided to get myself a new Nike+ SportBand. I have absolutely no idea as to where my first one went, but I haven't really needed one since I lost it as I haven't played football regularly since. It was great for tracking how much I ran during a game, much better than strapping an iPod to yourself considering how physical some encounters can get.

Before I settled on the SportBand, I was very intrigued by the FuelBand. Currently speculation suggest it might cost £150, in comparison to the £30 I spent on a SportBand, that's a lot of cash!

I was actually willing to wait for the FuelBand and even stump up the cash for it, thinking it would give me an incentive to climb more stairs and get a little more active during the day. The big draw back really came down to cycling. If it measures you're activity during the day, but can't measure how much effort you've put into cycling, what's the point?

That was the single biggest problem I had with the device. Fine, on a cycling machine, there's practicly no movement, but out on the road, people cycle for hours at a time but if it counted for nothing, how accurate would it actually be.

So I opted to go the for the SportBand. Now,

I'm not unhappy with that decision. There's so much more I can do with the £120 I saved, but I really thought about the issue and found it odd that Nike featured a segway as a way to get 'fuel' in their first promo video for the FuelBand and both a BMX-er and a skateboarder in subsequent introduction video.

Accelerometer

Rather than relying on a sensor in your shoe, limiting you to activities, it now relies on an accelerator, which most people have commented will only measure movement covered by your arm. That would make cycling pretty damn hard to track when your arms are near enough stationary for long periods of time. Nike have actually thought about that and included a 3D accelerometer. This, like the iPhone and iPod touch (and iPad?) lets you measure what I assume are g-forces, not just on a X or Y plane, but on the X, Y AND Z planes. BMW have already taken advantage of this with their iOS app and finally another manufacturer is putting the technology to good use!

To be fair, Nike have actually commented on the FuelBand's suitability for cycling and while they're conservative, I'd guess it does a better job at measuring the force you generate while cycling than they'd lead you to believe.

Way back in October 2009, I launched Nike+PHP, a PHP class that makes retrieving your data from Nike easy.

A little over 6 months ago, Nike removed their support for their original API and moved on to a new version. This broke Nike+PHP completely, although Nike restored the service, but it has been a little up and down.

Finally, after a long struggle, I got to grips with the new API and was able to replicate the functionality of version 1.2.5.

Version 2 is now available to the public and to coincide with this re-launch, I've updated the website too. Less clutter, more, and clearer, documentation and easier access to what you actually want!

Unfortunately, this update meant that an extra dependancy is needed to run it, in the form of cURL. As a compromise, I've introduced the ability to return JSON instead of just a PHP array. You have to specify that you want this, but once you've done that, all output will be in your preferred format.

Would be great to see what people do with this new functionality, so please share whatever you use it for on the Google Code wiki example page.

As part of the Nike+PHP project, I wanted to display the download count for the project. Mainly as a badge of pride, but also as a tool I can use to gauge the popularity of the project.

Google don't really offer anything like this on their own site, let alone as a widget, so I launched gCount this week.

Entering your Google Code project name will return a total download count and some JavaScript you can pop onto your website that will display the same count. I'll post updates to twitter if I make any enhancements and maybe even promote projects using the service!

So I am a lover of Nike+ and have had a Nike+ stat widget on the side of my blog for quite a while now. The project can be found at http://nikeplusphp.org.

It came to my attention that the method used wasn't the easiest and certainly wasn't up to date. Looks like something changed on Nike's end and that has broken the API I was using.

Looking around for an alternative, I was inspired to build my own class and am now firmly at version 0.7 with it. I've created a small website for the project where you can grab the code and there's some documentation to help you get started.

The project is called Nike+PHP and all you need is a Nike+ account, PHP5 and SimpleXML installed.

The class grabs all the info and creates a PHP array that's easy to use. I'll be updating it whenever I get a chance and will try to get a mailing list up and running so that you are able to keep the code up to date.

If you have any problems, need help or have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know (tweet me @nikeplusphp) and I'll do my best help.

Ever since the store opened a couple of months ago, I've been dying to go! Doing it online is fine, and pretty much how the whole 'by appointment' service works, it's just... better!

After making my appointment, I spent a few days lurking through forums, trawling through the Nike archives and picking the brains of previous visitors for ideas, inspirations and what to expect.

My research was pretty much pointless, because apart from one key colour I wanted, I ended up with something a little unexpected but something that I will definitely be wearing when it arrives.

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The Nike/Apple relationship has always been very interesting to me. I'm a big fan of what they promote, and the Nike+ service has always looked very slick and well managed.

I finally 'caved' in and bought a Nike+ product to help me keep a better record of the running I do. I did contemplate buying the whole range; as in shoes, attachment AND an iPod nano, but when I actually sat down and thought about the cost, it was just too much. Instead, I bought the new Nike+ SportBand and that was that.

It was the previews of the SportBand that really got me thinking more seriously about it. I recently purchased a pedometer that I mainly use when I play football on a 5-a-side pitch. It's been very useful to see how far I've run, but it doesn't really offer more than that. As well as the statistical advantage, I'm hoping the SportBand can give me an extra incentive to run a bit more. Maybe even cover more distance, improve my stamina (for running!) and maybe even help me better manage my running capabilities.

The product is very nice. The sport band is comfortable and light. The electronic readout is clear and it's also quite discreet. I've even considered wearing it as a watch on a daily basis, just the fact that I'd need to charge it on a regular basis has stopped me going that far. (my previous point wasn't as valid as I thought because it's always in watch mode and I haven't yet found a way to switch it off, but in the end I decided not to go down that route just yet).

Since I play football at night, a backlight might have been nice, but I'm sure battery life would have been more of an issue.

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