Battle of the Bands: Nike+ FuelBand SE a clunky fitness band for the Nike-devout

This is the third review in our mini-series 'Battle of the Bands,' comparing some of the most popular fitness bands available in Canada today. For an overview of the series, read Battle of the Bands: Finding the best fitness band for you.

Nike has been a name synonymous with fitness for years, from its iconic shoes to a vast empire of sportswear and equipment. Unsurprisingly, Nike decided to expand into the wearable fitness tech market, and even got a boost from a partnership with Apple, long before the fitness band craze really took off.

Unfortunately, all good things must end, it seems, and Nike announced it would be laying off much of its FuelBand team in April. The company says that it will still be working on the software side of things and will continue to partner with Apple on it, but this is the last we'll see of the Nike FuelBand hardware.

Nevertheless, the Nike+ FuelBand SE is still on sale here in Canada, and as they start to sell out over the next few months, you may even be able to snag one on a deal. Read on to find out if it will be a worthwhile purchase.

Battle of the Bands:

• Overview and side-by-side comparison

• FitBit Flex Review

• Samsung Galaxy Gear Fit Review

• Nike+ FuelBand SE Review

Upcoming entries in this series:

• Jawbone UP24 Review - coming June 5

• Polar Loop Review - coming June 12

• Picking our winners - coming June 19

Appearance

The biggest compliments this fitness band received were all centred around its multi-coloured LED display. It has a 120 LED four-colour display, which shows you various messages and tracking stats directly on the band, as well as a progress bar that shows how close you are to reaching your daily goal. All of the reviewers found that having this colourful, informative display tremendously helpful, and the best part of the band. All reviewers also liked the prominent button on the band that lets you flip through the various info screens including Nike Fuel, the time, steps walked, hours 'won' and calories burned.

"I found it very motivating," said one reviewer. "Instead of looking at your phone, just press a button, see you haven't walked enough and keep walking."

The look of the rest of the band got mixed reviews. Some reviewers thought the black-and-neon design looked sharp and stylish, while others thought it made too much of a statement and advertised a little too loudly that you're wearing a band to track your fitness. Other bands that we tested in this series were much more subtle.

Band Comfort

While the band looks pretty good, it was not a favourite amongst reviewers for comfort. Almost everyone used the words "heavy" and "clunky" to describe what it was like wearing the band, the rigid plastic made it uncomfortable to wear all the time. One of our reviewers found it so distracting, she couldn't wear it to bed, making sleep tracking impossible. Because of the thick plastic, people who sweat quite a bit while working out will likely find that it gets very sweaty between your wrist and the band, and seems to trap moisture more than some of the other bands.

Battery and Charging

The band has a USB charger built directly into it (it also serves as the clasp, as the USB plugs directly into the other side of the band), but the band does come with a USB extension cord so you don't have to bend your band (and potentially snap it) in order to plug it into the computer to charge.

All the reviewers found that the band charged quickly, and most found that it held a charge well. All the other reviewers got almost a week of use after the initial charge, while mine only lasted about three and a half days; it might be due to me using the mobile app, and therefore the Bluetooth sync, a lot more than the others did.

Compatibility

To use the Nike+ FuelBand SE, you need to install software on either your Mac or PC. There's an option to install a mobile app for iOS devices, but no option for Android users.

The Nike FuelBand isn't designed to work this third-party apps. Nike does make some other apps including its popular Nike+ Running, but it isn't compatible with the FuelBand.

Software

One of the biggest frustration we all had with the band was the Nike+ Fuel system. By default, instead of showing you steps or calories burned, the first stat displayed on the band and on the app home screen is "Nike Fuel." After we each wore the band for a week, none of us quite figured out how Nike Fuel was measured, which was demotivating.

"I don't care about what Nike deems to be an important tracker, I wanna know generic things like steps, calories, kilometres," said one reviewer. "The fuel made no sense to me."

Here's how Nike describes Nike Fuel on a page titled, "What is Nike Fuel?"

Yeah, I still don't totally get it, either. The idea is that instead of tracking something like steps, which wouldn't register during certain activities that would still burn lots of calories (like my hot yoga example from previous reviews), you can still register the energy expended and be able to compare the intensity and calories burned of activities that wouldn't be otherwise comparable, like walking and swimming. Still, having a system that isn't completely obvious and transparent to users makes it challenging to feel motivated when you're working towards a somewhat ambiguous goal.

Another measurement the band tracks is "hours won." This is the ultra-positive way Nike has framed the hours when you've moved around for at least five minutes. For desk-jockeys like myself, this is a useful piece of information.

In the initial set-up of the band, you need to download and install the Mac or PC program, sign up for a Nike+ account, then sync the band with the program via USB. This set-up process seems to take quite a while.

"When I first installed it I thought it had frozen, but it hadn't, it just took a long time, and it wasn't clear when it was doing something... it was just static until something happened," explained one reviewer. "That was very frustrating."

The iPhone app, which syncs via Bluetooth, can occasionally take a while to sync up with the band. Overall, both the desktop and mobile apps were largely unintuitive, and the prevalence of Nike Fuel over all other measurements made it difficult to track down the information you were looking for.

Food Logging

There's no option to track calories you consume with the Nike+ system.

Sleep Logging

Logging sleep time was much less intuitive on the Nike+ FuelBand than it was with the other trackers. You go into "Sessions," where you would record your activity normally, and select your activity as "Sleep." It shows periods during the night when you're active, but doesn't seem to register restlessness as well as other bands did. It's more a better indication for when you got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.

One reviewer aptly described the results from the FuelBand's sleep tracking as "uninteresting."

Walk Tracking

The toughest part about the walk tracking is actually finding it. Nike Fuel is the most prominently-displayed metric in the app and desktop software, you have to search a little more in order to find out what your step count is, which isn't great if that's what you're basing your goal-setting around.

There was also some suspicion that the FuelBand was low on counting steps. As with the FitBit Flex which was also suspected of having this issue, it's not a terrible problem if it motivates you to take some extra steps in your day. However since the steps were tough to find anyway and Nike Fuel is the overwhelming measurement of choice, it wasn't as well compensated.

Exercise Logging

The FuelBand supports a good variety of sports and activities, including tennis, basketball, kickboxing, running, walking and several others.

To log exercise, you need to set the exercise you're doing and the timer from your phone through 'Sessions' — something that can be quite inconvenient if you don't want to have your phone right beside you at the gym or in a fitness class.

Overall though, the activity selection is good and the band seems to track well the amount of effort you it detects during these sessions. And awards Nike Fuel accordingly, of course.

Other Features

The band offers an inactivity alert, which will buzz if you haven't moved around for at least five minutes that hour.

You also set up a goal amount of Nike Fuel to earn during the day when setting up your FuelBand. It suggests a value to you based on the level of activity you say you do, on a sedentary-to-active range. However the discrepancy between recommended goals was pretty significant: I listed my activity level as mostly sedentary, since I sit at a desk all day, and my daily walk to and from work was enough to blow past my 2000 Fuel goal. Meanwhile, another reviewer set their activity level as active and despite her longer walk to and from work and 7km evening runs, she still didn't reach her 5000 Fuel goal. This probably wouldn't be so bad if we better understood how much activity translates into how much Fuel.

Notably absent (when compared to the other bands) was the ability to set a silent alarm. While many of the bands can set specific times for vibration alerts, the FuelBand doesn't seem to have this ability.

Motivation
The FuelBand and Nike+ service do lots of things to keep you motivated in your fitness journey, including awarding badges which pop up on the iPhone app (I got a "best Wednesday" award!), and there are enough different awards to keep you interested and working hard to try and earn more.

When you reach your goal, you're also rewarded with animations on the FuelBand itself, which are actually really rewarding. Even having the progress bar that goes from red, to yellow, to green as you progress towards your goal is enough to spur you on to keep working.

Social

If you have friends who are also Nike+ users, you can add them as friends and see how their Nike Fuel score compares to yours. If you link your Facebook account, you can also share Sessions from the app, and tag your friends, add a photo or mark your location, as with most Facebook posts.

Since none of the reviewers were really interested in the social sharing, we only tried a couple of posts, but found that while they worked fine, they didn't really add or take away from the overall experience of the band.

Final Thoughts

While its clunky design didn't win any of us over, it was the forcing of the Nike Fuel system on the user that most put us off the band. The system is so out of step with what other bands track, that it took away from the experience of tracking fitness overall.
One of our reviewers summed it up the best:

"If you buy into Nike corporate, I'm sure it would be a great product, but if you're somebody who's looking to lose weight or have a healthy lifestyle, it doesn't really offer what the other bands do."

The band was also lacking some of the features of other comparable bands, like silent alarms and food tracking.

The FuelBand's screen, however, was excellent, and a great feature to have. It also didn't seem to drain too much battery power, seeing the band last for about as long as many of the others we used.

If you're into tracking Nike Fuel instead of steps, really want a screen, and don't mind having an obvious, chunky fitness band, it's worth considering.

The Nike+ FuelBand SE is available now through the Nike Store, Apple.ca, Sport Chek, Footlocker and other specialty sporting goods stores (for a full list near you, click here) and retails for $149.95.

Need to know what’s hot in tech?
Follow @YRightClick on Twitter!