Nike Fuel

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It pains me to do this, but I have to give the Fuel a disappointing two thumbs down.

First, the good: Its incredibly easy to set up and is very user friendly. Plug it in and software launches, the set up takes minutes, and there's 1 button on the band. Its comfortable and I rarely notice it. It also serves as a watch so I don't have to wear a second watch.

The bad: The Fuel metric simply isn't accurate. The problem, from what I can tell, is that it isn't picking up all my mileage (when you upload the data to the Fuel software it shows your total mileage for the day). I could live with that, since I'm not relying on it for mileage, if it was consistently inaccurate by a certain percentage. After all, I just want to compare hard days to easy day as a way to see how hard I'm working and to ensure that I'm recovering enough.

But therein lies the problem. For some reason, the band more accurately measures mileage the slower I run. For example, on Sunday I ran 18 miles at a 6:40 pace. The Fuel band measured only 12 miles and ~3,500 fuel points for the run. Yesterday I did two easy runs of 5 and 9 at a 7:30 pace; it measured 13 miles and close to 4,000 fuel. My tempo runs last week were even worse. I did 4 miles at a 5:25 pace and got less than 200 points per actual mile.

I've emailed and tweeted Nike to see what the hell is going on. But its a bummer. I don't think the calorie counter is accurate either. On Sunday I supposedly burned 2,100 calories for the entire day! I should burned more than that during the run, let alone the additional calories for simply being alive the other 16 hours.

So it looks like I may have wasted $150.

2,100 calories for the entire day?

Haha, not even enough for small lazy Jerry.

You ran for 8hrs on Sunday? I agree, that calorie metric appears to be way off. As does the "fuel points" thing.

Well, Dave, you're an early adopter of a first generation technology ... a beta tester as it were. Your money and experience isn't wasted if it's used to improve things for the next generation.

I can't make sense of the fuel metric or calorie burn numbers you posted either. And I tried. I'm assuming that it contains only an accelerometer and a clock. Without a HR monitor and/or GPS tracking, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for an accelerometer alone to provide accurate estimates of workout/rest intensity and accumulate these into meaningful Nike fuel points or calories burned. I suspect that the device will be re-calibrated over the coming months via firmware upgrades or patches to account for all the feedback that Nike will be getting from owners. And you're one of them. So you're doing a good service.

Yeah, it's frustrating when it doesn't work like it says in the tin. But that's the frustration we beta testers feel every day. Welcome to the club!

KBFitz wrote:Well, Dave, you're an early adopter of a first generation technology ... a beta tester as it were. Your money and experience isn't wasted if it's used to improve things for the next generation.

I can't make sense of the fuel metric or calorie burn numbers you posted either. And I tried. I'm assuming that it contains only an accelerometer and a clock. Without a HR monitor and/or GPS tracking, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for an accelerometer alone to provide accurate estimates of workout/rest intensity and accumulate these into meaningful Nike fuel points or calories burned. I suspect that the device will be re-calibrated over the coming months via firmware upgrades or patches to account for all the feedback that Nike will be getting from owners. And you're one of them. So you're doing a good service.

Yeah, it's frustrating when it doesn't work like it says in the tin. But that's the frustration we beta testers feel every day. Welcome to the club!

Beta tester?

It only makes sense if you make money.

Mike MacLellan wrote:You ran for 8hrs on Sunday? I agree, that calorie metric appears to be way off. As does the "fuel points" thing.

That would be one sloooooow run.

I don't wear it in my sleep, so I was just counting the hours from when I woke up until I went to bed.

KBFitz wrote:
I can't make sense of the fuel metric or calorie burn numbers you posted either. And I tried. I'm assuming that it contains only an accelerometer and a clock. Without a HR monitor and/or GPS tracking, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for an accelerometer alone to provide accurate estimates of workout/rest intensity and accumulate these into meaningful Nike fuel points or calories burned. I suspect that the device will be re-calibrated over the coming months via firmware upgrades or patches to account for all the feedback that Nike will be getting from owners. And you're one of them. So you're doing a good service.

Yeah, it's frustrating when it doesn't work like it says in the tin. But that's the frustration we beta testers feel every day. Welcome to the club!

Yup, that was my concern, and it appears to be the unfortunate reality. I don't understand why there seems to be a correlation between Fuel points and increased pace....but that's something for people much smarter than myself to figure out.

Dave-O,

I was just thinking that it might not be such a good idea to use the Nike Fuel to calculate your billable hours.