Nike Hyperdunk+ Wear Test Part 2 | Function
Last week I gave you Part 1 in my breakdown of the Nike+ Hyperdunk 2012. While the first part focused on the Form of the shoe, today’s installment focuses on the Function of the shoe.
The Nike Hyperdunk+ introduces the world to Nike’s newest digital effort by connecting the shoe and the user with their online Nike+ platform. This is the first time that Nike has ventured outside of the running category with their Nike+ experience. What was said to be underdevelopment since 2006 when the Beaverton based company unveiled the technology to runners around the world, the Nike+ Basketball experience takes what running does and pushes it even further to connect with the basketball community like never before.
I had the opportunity to experience each Function of the technology during the wear test at the World Basketball Festival last weekend. Nike Ekin’s walked us through three stations that highlighted the capabilities of the shoe and then they let us loose as we tracked our stats during pick-up games.
Station 1: PAIR YOUR SHOES
In the first station we received our sensors. The sensors were already paired with iPod touches to save on time so we were able to instantly see what the technology could provide for us. Once the sensors were inserted into the midfoot, just underneath the insole of our shoes; we were able to watch on a large flat-screen our foot pressure. It was really unique to see how live the interaction was, for instance if you lifted your toes or your heels it was tracked and visually showed you on the pressure mapping. You can see the exact same thing on your personal iPhone or iPod touch as well. So it wasn’t something unique that was created just for the event. Next we did two drills that were quickly turned into competitions amongst us.
The first drill was our foot speed. The system tracks how many steps you take, how fast you take your steps and what your average speed is; so naturally we raced to see who could do the best. We raced the first to 100 steps. I lost but it was cool to see how fast I am going and what my average was.
The next drill was testing how high our vertical is. We were allowed one step and then we jumped and pulled our knees to our chest. This drill was by far the most humbling of the experience is it let me know that I have no chance in hell of ever dunking on a regulation hoop but it was great to see my max high out of three jumps. It gives me something to strive to be consistent with or improve on.
During these drills we were also showed that the system keeps track of your fuel points. So even if you don’t have a Nike Fuel Band it tracks what your fuel was for the day on the court.
Station 2: TRACK YOUR GAME
The next station really showed what the capability of the technology is. Once your shoe is connected to your mobile Apple device you can leave the device on the sidelines as the sensors in your shoes track your movement and then reconnect with your device once you are finished playing.
They ran us through basic basketball drills that provided us with a variety of movements and opportunities to explode and take off. They would have us start at half court dribble hard to the foul line and then shake a defender and explode to the hoop for a finger roll or they would have us pass into someone at the elbow coming off of a screen and catch a pass on the wing for an open jump shot. We ran about fifteen minutes worth of drills like this and then stopped to see what the system tracked.
Once we connected back to our devices the sensors loaded our game info to the Nike+ Basketball App and then visually displayed our game stats. You could see how many steps you took, what your average vertical was, how quick you are and how much you hustle. If you tip your phone to horizontal it then breaks the stats down into a graph that tracks what you did over the amount of time played.
The most unique part to me was is that it tells you how much you were walking. I will be honest I am not the best basketball player on the planet so the interest of improving my vertical is minimal but to see that I am walking 60% of the time is eye opening and definitely will motivate me to run harder every time on the court from this point on.
Station 3: SHOWCASE MODE
The final station gives you the opportunity to create your own game highlight with the Showcase Mode inside the App. This mode allows you to film a 30 second video and upload it to you YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to show the world what damage you did on the court that day.
This station was by far the most fun because everyone opened up their creativity, as we were able to showcase our best dunks. Nike provided us with three hoops to choose from: 7-foot (middle school reminiscing), 8-foot (high school fun time) and 9-foot (high school competitive time). I chose to go with the 8-foot and see what I still had. I managed to get in a couple of windmills during the first 20 seconds and saved my best dunk, the under the baseline reverse 360 Vince Carter dunk from the 2000 All-Star game; for the last ten seconds. You are probably thinking I am lying here, I guess you will never know as the Ekin’s couldn’t send us our Showcase Mode highlight because it wasn’t connected to any mobile network.
Absolutely amazing commercial by Nike…as always!
The whole Nike+ thing has huge potential.
I think that recording all these infos during the course of a game has huge potential.
Normally elevation/speed tests were made over special sensor filled carpets, with reduced extension.
Now athletes have the chance to measure their bodies performance wherever/whenever.
I imagine all the informations recorded will be able to create an enourmous database.
Athletes and coaches all over the world could try new training methods and test the results and compare them with other methods!
I think that training techniques will be improved and finetuned for each single athlete.
And everything will be available to everyday atheletes just using properly developed softwares.
I think this will help to push human body performance to a whole new level in the next few years!
…sadly my young days jumping ability is almost totally disappeared and my days as basketball player are almost over, so my chances to have fun with this stuff is widely reduced…
ciaoo
Pietro
Lol! Pietro, I have the exact same problems. I am going to discuss it more in the final part 3 but I completely see how this will change the way the youth of the game plays.
As an older youth it’s cool for me to track my stats but the reality is I am not trying to get into college basketball or push myself to make a league so my stats just shoe me the amount of activity I am getting. But if I am training as a freshmen in high school to make the varsity team this system would motivate me to keep pushing and playing harder and harder.
Imagine once this system gets in the hands of our next great player, our next MJ, Kobe, Lebron or KD; those players as a youth already have a motivational drive that is subpar to no one and the Nike+ system will only push them further. The amount of growth a young player will have could increase in a rapid way as they are their own trainer. This system has serious potential to change the world of youth basketball.
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I wish the app wouldn’t shut down for no reason while playing. It happens on a regular basis and results in tons of data being lost. The sync process also takes forever so it’s not something you can do between each pickup game. Nike needs to improve the user interface before this technology is ready for prime time.
I would agree the synch process takes way longer than I anticipated it to. I haven’t experienced it losing data yet. I think the system has some flaws that will be worked out. It’s a huge system and you can’t plan for everything because you don’t know what it is going to encounter once millions of people are using it. I think what is cool is that it is software updates to fix the system and not buying a new shoe.