Tech

Nike’s real-life power lacing shoes are here

Published

8 years ago

March 17, 2016

Nike’s real-life power lacing shoes are here. “Have you ever had shoes without shoestrings?” Kanye West intoned in 2009’s “Run This Town” collaboration with Jay-Z and Rihanna.

The self-styled genius and fashion auteur maybe forgot that Velcro exists, but his line could almost as easily describe Nike’s new HyperAdapt 1.0 sneakers with “adaptive lacing”, debuted by the long-running footwear giant in New York today.

The Nike HyperAdapt 1.0 is the payoff of significant research into digital, electrical and mechanical engineering. Powered by an underfoot-lacing mechanism, the shoe proposes a ground-breaking solution to individual idiosyncrasies in lacing and fit preferences.

That means the undue pressure caused by tight tying and slippages resulting from loose laces are relics of the past. Precise, consistent, personalized lockdown can now be manually adjusted on the go.

Strip that of marketing copy, and we get shoes that automatically tighten around the full weight of the foot inside them. It’s a bold new variation in tech that keeps shoes attached to feet. And It is an idea we haven’t seen implemented, really, since Back To The Future Part 2 or its fan-made imitations.

Nike has yet to release details on actual pricing or the precise release date outside “Holiday 2016”, but the footwear and apparel company says you’ll need to download the upcoming new Nike+ app coming out in July to be eligible to buy the HyperAdapt 1.0s.

The adaptive lacing technology isn’t fully automatic though. As in, it won’t just tighten and loosen on the fly. Along with the heel sensor, you can adjust the power laces through a button on the side of the shoe. This isn’t purely just a gimmick (it’s a lot of gimmick though) because the idea is that the added benefit of these power laces is that the shoe’s laces will give the same sort of consistent scrunching and tightening each time.

The Nike HyperAdapt 1.0 is supposed to come out during the holiday season of 2016 in three different colors. No word on price yet but it’s probably safe to assume that you’ll need to start shining up them pennies.

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