If someone had asked me three decades ago about the future, I would have told them that I would go to work in a flying car, enjoy vacations on other planets, and slip on my own Nike shoes. Well, the subway is not as fast as the Flying Spinner that appears in Blade Runner and the Levante coast is far from looking like Saturn, but my Nike Adapt Auto Max does buckle up on its own.
In 2016, the famous Nike Mag that Michael J. Fox wore in Back to the Future 2 were reissued. With its launch, they helped raise funds for the same actor’s Parkinson’s fight foundation. Today they are a collector’s jewel that sells for a whopping 30,000 euros. Since then, the Oregon company has used the Adapt automatic lacing system in different models such as Huarache or Adapt BB, the latter specially designed to play basketball and that professionals such as Slovenian Luka Dončić have already tried, for a short time by the way, on the playing court.
The Air Max 90 celebrates its thirtieth birthday. It is the perfect time for them to join the Adapt family, so that fans of this iconic model can control the degree of support of our shoes with a single button, also adapting it throughout the day, for example, loosening when we go to sit for a while.
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Everything From The Mobile
The smartphone dominates our life, we already do absolutely everything from our little partner. Even in times of confinement we have learned to love each other through your screen. Controlling our footwear was not going to be less: Nike Shoes offers us a very intuitive app in which we can change the color of the lights (they turn on when they are fastened or unbuttoned) to generate a default adjustment mode to be able to return to it anytime.
The first step is to pair both gadgets via Bluetooth, which is quite easy to do. We just have to move the phone closer to the control buttons of the Nike Shoes to link them with our app . Once this operation is completed, we can control them even when our mobile is connected to another device via Bluetooth, which is quite useful if I want to put a driving mode with a more secure loop when I get into the car and at the same time listen to Spotify or use the hands-free.
We can also create voice shortcuts for Siri if we use iPhone. “Loosen my shoes” or “Change my lights” are some of the defaults, but we can create up to five different ones to control the different functionalities of the app, such as checking the battery level that we still have. If it runs out while we wear the sneakers, by the way, they would unbutton themselves.
If we own an Apple Watch we will feel like Michael Knight in The fantastic car. “KITT, button up my sneakers!” The future is not what we imagined, but we must admit that we always wanted to control something from our wrist.
Sounding Laces
Michael Donaghu, Global Director of Brand Innovation, says there is an invention older than the pyramids or the Stonehenge: laces. Since their invention around 3500 BC they have hardly undergone evolution. If we think about how many technologies have emerged, changed or even disappeared since then, it is difficult to imagine how we got here without a system that does not force us to bend down every day when putting on our shoes.
The Adapt system does not use laces themselves, but rather tightening threads attached to the tongue that gently adjust to our foot when we press to button. With a motor that we intuit is hidden in the sole – hence the great height of it – we notice the fastenings almost instantly. Once the mechanism starts, our sneakers sound as if we are about to take off. Perhaps the future will come from making a quiet system and the smallest motor. Lowering your price by € 400 would also help. As for the advantages, they are obvious. Now I am in danger of not wanting to use anything else.
Nike Shoes: How Does It Work
Smart footwear. At the moment it is only an automatic fastening system. Nike aims to learn about how we use the product. We can contribute to this if we give permission in the app to collect data. Your intention in using engine statistics and diagnostic data is to continue to improve the performance of the Adapt system and who knows whether to develop new functionality in the future.
App. With a simple interface we find the letters L and R, which we can slide up or down to independently fasten our left and right shoes. We can also choose between thirteen different colors for the manual button fastening. Checking the battery or switching between preset modes are other functions available.
Loading. Depending on the frequency of use, the shoe’s battery should last between 14 and 20 days. We can know its status at any time by quickly pressing the two buttons at the same time. The color will indicate the percentage of charge. The estimated time of a full charge is approximately four hours and is done by leaving our shoes on the charging base that we plug into the electrical network.
Conclusion. The Adapt system is something you have always wanted to try. Despite the fact that Siri does not get along well with the voice shortcuts that I have created on my phone, I am hooked from the first minute to these shoes: their use is very comfortable and intuitive and the fit adapts perfectly to our taste, Although the sole is a bit hard and its price is still very high for the functionality it offers. Please have someone invent the hoverboard Marty McFly used already.
