iPod Nike+ Shoes

[shadowfayre]

I am a bit confused on the Nike+ gadgets. If I purchase a Nike+ shoe at the store, does it come with the sensor or do I still need to purchase it separately? I know you can purchase the sensor and attach it to any shoe, just curious if the Nike+ shoes for 75 bucks has the sensor built-in or is it just a regular shoe with a "special slot"?

Question about the accuracy. I have in the past bought and frankly received free Pedometers and found them to lack any accuracy. For the most part the ones I have tested required you to enter the number of steps you take over a given period and just calculates the total via the number of minutes you walk or run. Is the Nike+ the same way? If not, how does it actually retrieve the stats? I don't believe it has a GPS sensor, so it could not figure it out my location, or am I completely off scale?

Is it worth purchasing in general? The cost is not concerning as it is only 20 bucks, again more based on accuracy and rather or not after the initial purchase, do people still use it?

Oh yeah, I have the 2nd Gen IPOD touch.

Thanks for any comments.

 

[sreedy]

I've had two of these Nike+ shoes and they do not come with the sensor, just the hole (well filled with a little plastic fake sensor).

I've compare the accuracy with my GPS sensor and would say over 10km there is about a 400m difference which isn't bad and I haven't "configured" it which you can do to improve accuracy with your run. It's an accelerometer and not a pedometer, check the wiki for what this means.

I think the whole Nike+ site with goals and competitions is the bonus for me, really makes me run more and makes running alone suddenly more competitive when I see my mate has just done 43mins for 10km and I want to destroy him!

 

[chapmac]

Hi - agree with the above. I have used mine for over 2 years now and couldn't run without it. Covered 1000+ miles in that time. Accuracy is very good considering its cost. Much the same as the poster above in races with measured distances mine is within 300m over 10K, and about 400-450m over 10 miles, so I guess that's about 97-98% accurate. If you need more then 5x the cost on a GPS system is for you.

If you are going to use a touch then you only need the shoe sensor and not the transmitter (which you do on a nano) as that built into a touch v2.

Re shoes - my advice would be this. All the Nike+ shoes are are the regular shoes with a lozenge shaped hole in the sole for the sensor. If you are going to do any kind of serious running its far more important to get shoes which are comfortable and right for your style of running, otherwise you will just injure yourself. Find the shoes you which are right for you and then just buy a cheap pouch that fits on your laces to hold the sensor.

Re the website, the stats are great but - I wish they would update it, as its basically the same since they launched a couple of years ago. I would happily pay for more functions/analysis tools.

Hope this helps