Nike announces launch of self-lacing shoe

• Wearable tech first seen in film Back to the Future
• Adaptive technology can be used by athletes and for other applications

 

NIKE recently announced that its brand new self-lacing shoes will be out in the market on November 28. The shoe – the Nike HyperAdapt 1.0 – is the result of deep research in digital, electrical and mechanical engineering transformed into a wearable and functional product.

The shoe is based on the pair worn by Marty McFly in the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II. In the film, Marty travels from 1985 to 21 October 2015 where he uses various futuristic technologies, including a pair of Nike athletic shoes complete with ‘power laces’ that do themselves up.

It has taken 27 years for Nike to create ‘power laces’ that work practically and for everyday use. The challenges were numerous; Nike’s official news release on its website states that the shoe ‘challenges traditional understanding of fit, proposing an ultimate solution to individual idiosyncrasies in lacing and tension preferences’.

The task of creating the shoe fell to Tiffany Beers, Senior Innovator at NIKE, Inc and designer Tinker Hatfield, who has designed numerous Nike shoes in the past and is now Vice President of Creative Concepts. Starting out with Beers brainstorming with a group of engineers, Hatfield and Beers spearheaded a number of new systems, a pool of prototypes and several trials, arriving at an underfoot-lacing mechanism in 2013.

The actual debut of Nike’s new adaptive technology was very quiet – the company put out the first self-lacing shoe, Nike Mag, on 21 October 2015 in conjunction with the fictional date Marty McFly first sees them in the film.

About a year later, Nike is ready to launch the more technical, sport version of the original shoe - the Nike HyperAdapt 1.0.

The shoe employs what Hatfield calls ‘EARL’ – electro adaptive reactive lacing. This consists of a small engine housed in the sole of the shoe that is attached to the fit system, which is a series of cables that comes up from the sole and wraps around the front where there are nylon laces. These laces are a visual aid that users can see tightening but are not actually what keeps the shoe fitted to the foot – the cables do that.

When the users steps into the shoe, the heel sensor activates the lace engine, which tightens the fit system, stopping when it senses certain tension around the foot. The Nike HyperAdapt 1.0 is currently manually adjustable with two buttons on the shoe to tighten or loosen the fit. Beers says that in the future “that’s going to happen on its own”, suggesting automatic controls through stopping short of actually describing how they will work.

The motor runs on a battery also housed in the shoe’s sole. It can last about two weeks and takes about three hours to fully charge. In 1989 when filming Back to the Future Part II, Michael J Fox had to carry a brick-sized battery pack in his jeans to make his power laces work.

The innovation is not just for the sake of fancy futuristic fashion. It solves a quandary that high-performance athletes face – the ability to make swift micro adjustments to their kit. Nike sees this as making undue pressure caused by tight tying and slippage resulting from loose laces relics of the past.

For example, a player sitting on the bench waiting for his or her turn in the game could keep their shoes lose on their feet instead of tightly laced – not very good for the feet – and have the shoes lace up instantly when the athlete is put into play. Marathon runners could make micro-adjustments throughout their run depending on terrain, weather and how swollen their feet are.

Hatfield says the ability to make precise, consistent personalised adjustments is important because feet undergo an incredible amount of stress during competition. “It is amazing to consider a shoe that senses what the body needs in real-time. That eliminates a multitude of distractions, including mental attrition, and thus truly benefits performance.”

Beers adds that the technology can also aid in upping the quality of life for individuals who are unable to tie their shoes on their own.

Nike has not released details about the HyperAdapt 1.0’s retail price, though it is bound to be incredibly expensive. The company also will not say how much it spent on research and development of the shoe.

Nevertheless, Hatfield believes that the HyperAdapt is the first step in a revolution in adaptive footwear and Beers describes it as “so cool”.

The Nike HyperAdapt 1.0 will be available in selected Nike stores in the USA. No details are available on when they will reach the rest of the world.
 
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