Last Updated on October 21, 2017 by Mathew Diekhake
If you’re someone looking to get into fitness, or even just lose some weight, keeping an eye on what you do is really helpful. That’s where the Nike Fuel Band comes into play. It’s a band that you wear around your wrist and it monitors and displays what you have done.
With the first one released a year ago now, there was a flaw in the system that basically allowed anyone to wave the band in the air and it would pick up on the activity. If you wanted to cheat, or if you have a girlfriend or boyfriend that was keeping an eye on you, this became an easy walk-around, so to speak. The new Fuel Band SE — which is the second generation band — has several neat upgrades over the last one which we will touch on later, but one thing it also has on board is that it has taken away this ability to cheat. Now you aren’t able to simply wave it an expect results. Instead, you will actually have to box.
As you can see in the detailed pictures, they now come in a variety of colors. Nike has actually had a fairly close alliance with Apple for things like the Fuel Band because it also requires an app for you to download and watch the results via the iPhone’s screen. While there’s no proof, the color idea is arguably taking a leaf out of Apple’s book.
Again, there is no great new amazing feature that we didn’t have before, much like with the cheaper iPhone that was just released, but they slapped some color into it and it created a market; there’s a similar thing going on here with the FuelBand SE.
Performance upgrades? Yes. Added color and better looks? Yes. Revamped app with more? Yes. This is generally what you’re getting out of the second generation Nike fitness band. These companies generally focus on creating just enough difference in a product for it to sell for the following year. Whether that is done tactically for business reasons, or whether that is simply the latest technology they had in the bag to give is up to you to decide.
Having said that, when you take a look at the band, it does look very nice. It’s without a doubt a nice upgrade over the last version, and as with most things, when the first generation is released they are far from perfect, so there’s always the bonus of knowing it will just work better.
In terms of new features, you can now keep track of your sleep; something that it was not equipped with last time around. Some may argue what that has to do with fitness, but sleep actually does play an integral role in keeping healthy and ultimately losing weight because you burn a lot of calories during sleep. Personally, I think that this is a really great inclusion.
In terms of size, it hasn’t changed at all; the screen is identical to the last one, and the form factor in its entirety is also the same.
Here is the advertisement issued by Nike: