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Nike announces new and more colorful Nike+ FuelBand SE

Nike announces new and more colorful Nike+ FuelBand SE

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Nike Fuelband SE
Nike Fuelband SE

At a big, athlete-filled event in New York City, Nike has announced the new Nike+ Fuelband SE. The band is mostly the same, only with some color: it comes in yellow, pink, or red accenting an otherwise black body. Besides the slightly updated design, the biggest addition is Bluetooth 4.0. This enables users to track invididual sessions and see the points earned in real time. The band is still largely based around Fuel points, which is Nike's abstracted version of activity quantification.

The main improvement comes to the Nike+ system, which the company says has been refined over the past year to more accurately track different types of activities. The changes also mean that activities that shouldn't be counted are not, so there's no more cheating the system.

Double tap to show the time

The company has added hourly reminders asking you to move around for five minutes, in case you're too stagnant too long. You can also now double tap on the device to show the current time, resolving an odd omission from the last model. The app has also been improved, and now has a curve graph that encourages people to move every hour. There's now an intensity level that shows points as users are working out or doing some other physical activity — you can name these sessions, and share what you were doing with friends.

The new FuelBand SE is part of a larger Nike+ ecosystem, which also includes the new Nike+ Moves app that was announced alongside the iPhone 5S. The app takes advantage of the iPhone's new M7 chip, which is able to track activity without quickly draining the battery. Nike spent a long time talking about the Fuel metric, and all the new ways to measure and track how you're doing.

The new FuelBand SE is part of a larger Nike+ ecosystem

The announcement comes shortly after Fitbit's announcement of the Force, a more advanced version of the Flex that features a more robust display. The Fitbit Force displays actual step count, with a default goal of 10,000 steps a day, as well as elevation climbed and calories burned.

The FuelBand SE will be available November 6th and will cost $149. There's still no Android or Windows Phone 8 support; only iOS and the Nike+ website. For those hoping for a huge change or improvement from Nike, the announcement is a bit of a letdown, but a burst of color and a lot of new software might help the company stay dominant in the fitness world.