Customer Reviews

Nike + SportBand (Neutral Grey/Pink Flash)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

The Nike+ Sportband is an excellent tool to add to your running or walking routine. The device links to a sensor you place in your shoe that tracks your milage, pace, and calories burned. Do not think this is to be used as a pedometer. It is meant for measuring distance not steps. The Sportband is very simple to use once you get past the directions Nike includes. The directions included show pictures, but written directions do not accompany these. This is frustrating for people who like to use written directions and can be confusing. The directions are not clear about how to link the Sportband to the shoe sensor. You may have to google how to do this in order to assure proper function.

The Nike+ Sportband is lightweight and very comfortable for wrist wear. It is a little large for people with small wrists. I have it on the tightest setting and still have movement on the wrist. It is a great alternative to the iPod armbands which can give you that tourniquet feel.

In order to assure accurate workouts, you must make sure to calibrate the sensor and enter your correct age and weight. If you do not calibrate the sensor, your workout distance can be off as much as a quarter mile per mile. If you do not enter your data, your calories burned will not be accurate. These two things should be your first action with the Sportband or any Nike+ product.

The Sportband also has a few drawbacks. If you have used Nike+ products with the iPod, you may be used to receiving the vocal feedback that can countdown miles left if you are planning to run a certain distance. You do not get the vocal feedback during your workout with the Sportband. You do have to actually look at the Sportband to get your workout data.

Overall, the Nike+ Sportband is a great investment for people who want quick workout feedback for running or walking. It is a great alternative to Nike+ with iPod if you do not like to run with music or like to fidget with a semi-bulky item. I use mine for every workout along with my iPod shuffle for a satisfying run with feedback.

I had a first generation band that lasted about a year and a half (finally the portion that inserts into the USB drive failed to hold a charge through a workout). The mileage could vary significantly, being off up to a quarter of mile for each mile. However, this new band has been right on the mark, usually within one hundredth of a mile. You can use this on road running or the treadmill. It is great to be able to easily track your mileage and satisfying to see your progress on the Nike + website. The website can be tempermental, but that could be a mac issue. In general, it is an easy system to use. Both bands that I have had required about a half hour of getting the band to see the sensor chip, which is frustrating to say the least. Don't forget to buy a sensor holder for your shoe. It will not fit into a shoe except for a couple Nike models. I also bought my sister a band and her sensor died in 6 months, while mine still works after a year and a half. Nike/Apple has been good about replacing sensor chips when my friends have had issues, but my sister just stopped using it. Friends have had problems where their iPods never could find chips or that they would intermittently work. So, be wary that the chips are prone to defects.

I got this for my wife and it took a few times of calibration to get it to be fairly accurate. We went on a 4-mile run - I wore my Garmin Forerunner and she wore her NikePlus watch and as soon as we finished the run, we both stopped our watches. We used this to calibrate the watch and ever since then, her watch has been pretty accurate. I like Nike's software too. Easy to install, easy to find your way around but why can't I minimize the application window when the unit is plugged into my computer? How annoying! So if you're charging the unit, you'll see the Nike utility on your desktop the entire time with no way of getting rid of it until you disconnect the unit from the PC. Just a small gripe. I also bought her a shoe pouch for the foot pod since she wears ASICS. Seems to work fine.

I bought this as an alternative to buying an expensive GPS watch thinking it would do the trick. I was wrong. I calibrated it, re-calibrated it over and over and it would never work properly. I was trying to use this device to train for a half marathon but the times were always way off not even close to the times I did. I even went as far to take it back to the running store that I bought it at and have them help me with it but they couldn't do anything with it either. In theory, I thought it was going to be a great buy but in the end (as always for me at least) I got what I paid for. I got a product that never worked properly. I took it back and saved my money and bought a GPS since I've had no problems and all of my runs are recorded correctly which is really important when training for races. I hope that whoever reads this review has a better experience with this product than I had but I would advise to save your money!

went through two units. both with display problems. didn't last over two weeks.

The only downside to this is the accuracy of the sensor. I calibrated it two different times on a treadmill, and both times it came up with less than what the treadmill said I ran, but, the second time was closer that the first, so it make take a few times. I do like that i can scroll through distance, pace and chrono, and that it keeps tally of miles for the current week, as well as total miles while using the sport band. I do like it, and find it helpful and would recommend it to anyone not having the newest ipod.

If you don't have a ipod nano, then this product is great for tracking your runs and keeping you motivated.

Pros:
- comfortable wrist band
- small and lightweight
- USB connector idea is pretty neat

Cons:
- display is very hard to read: no backlight, digits are small, watch face is oriented 90 degrees from viewing angle
- mileage tracking is grossly inaccurate (up to 30% off), even after calibration; appears to make the absurd assumption that you always run using the same length stride
- if you want the watch to display elapsed time once you push the start button without having to push any other buttons, you will not be able to see the distance run until your run is over
- cannot be used as a basic stopwatch because it must communicate with sensor on shoes
- does not display seconds for runs lasting over an hour
- recalibrated runs are not updated on web site to reflect actual distance
- web site is so slow as to be unusable
- clearly costs only a few dollars to manufacture = overpriced at $59
- by the time you discover all of these cons, you will have used the watch so that it cannot be returned

This Sportband is awesome! I was a little afraid after reading all of the reviews stating that it was inaccurate at tracking distance, but I thought that it was worth a shot seeing that it was only $50 compared to the much more expensive GPS watches that are big and bulky. I was pleasantly surprised! It is small, cute, and stylish. I bought the red plum/crimson. Very girly and pretty. The battery lasts a really long time, and because it is so cute, I find that I'm wearing it more often than not on a daily basis. I have a definite mile loop that I do every day and it is always well within range of the actual distance. only downfall, and the reason I gave it 4 stars, is because I found that the tracking works well when you're doing a steady pace; however, sprints is it's downfall. It gets very off course and inaccurate when doing intervals or sprints. But overall, very stylish, girly, useful as a daily sport watch, and accurate when doing laps or distance training.

Overall I am very happy with my sportband. The good:
- Consistent calorie and mileage tracking
- Can be calibrated once running and once walking, but you need to do this on a track or on a treadmill to be accurate.
- Foot sensor even when strapped on my laces was barely noticeable
- Long long long battery life
- Charge it my plugging into your computer. Charges very quickly (less than 30 min for full charge from dead)
- Easy to start and stop and pause a run
- One button push to see the time, mileage, speed and calorie count
- very sturdy wristband that is also adjustable
- Can be set to more than one foot pod. Each foot pod can be calibrated is my understanding
- Share you runs with friends on Nike+, and/or share on Facebook
- The software which syncs the sportband with the computer consistently works

The bad
- Even though calibrated, mine consistently shows slightly faster mileage than actual.
This is probably because I take smaller steps than other people, but I expected the calibration to take care of that, and
for it didn't.
- Will not work with some foot pod holders, or if the sensor is accidentally placed upside down
- Only keeps workouts for 7 days total
- Most of my gripes are with the website itself, which definitely needs work. This device is made
so that you can upload your results to Nike+. The site has some really great features, like the statistics,
and competitions, but there are some features that are lacking, and the site (to me) is fairly buggy, although
better in the last few months.
- Not waterproof
- Can only be charged to the computer, not the wall
- When you lose a sensor, basically you have to buy another sensor and do the calibration all over again.
- If you do not have Nike shoes, you have to buy a sensor holder. These are very cheap, but I guess that
I didn't know it ahead of time.