My review of the Nike FuelBand that was posted in July of 2012 is mostly unchanged. The software is still clunky, the band heavy and the overall data collected is minimal and often inaccurate. Driving in a car for 8 hours and reaching my fitness goal is not what I’d call accurate but, the graphs show I’m very active with the most activity being while I ate a box of french fries at a truck stop. Lifting bag to mouth counted for 200 Nike Fuel points or about 5 minutes of sprinting. Yeah, not accurate.
On the last leg of my trip to Europe, I banged the fuel band against the door of an airplane and broke the band. It snapped but the rubber held it together until I got home. A call to Nike and they replaced the band in-warranty with a brand new one with the box, accessories, everything. That was pretty cool and, the new unit has a new 1 year warranty. I figured it was because the overall satisfaction people have with the device is low but a free brand new unit with a new warranty is nothing to complain about.
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The new 1st generation FuelBand is heavier, thicker, more rigid and holds to the wrist must better. It’s harder to take on and off which should mean it holds up much longer. Besides, a water-tight fit means you really shouldn’t take it off unless you’re going to go swimming. I did go skiing at the lake last summer and forgot to take the band off and it was fine even while submerged in water but Nike doesn’t recommend that.
Primarily, aside from the stiffness of the new unit, not much is changed but the battery life has blown me away. I’m in awe of how long this unit has lated on my wrist. It has stored data just fine, logged my movements and told me the time. The unit has been functioning normally but, instead of the normal 3 days between charges, I’ve been wearing the Fuel Band for 4 weeks. I have an inquiry into Nike asking if this is normal. I just plugged in my device for my once a week sync and it’s showing 25% battery remaining, the same thing the FuelBand showed 3 weeks ago. It seems like the device isn’t aware the battery is running low. Is his normal?
So, I’m very confused as to why the battery lasted so long but a 4 week battery life on an activity tracker is very impressive. Although, I still think this is a bug because the device has been charging on my macBook via USB for an hour and still hasn’t gone above 25% battery life. But, if it’s still tracking my movements, what’s the big deal what the battery reads, right?
Update: I just did a force reset of the unit and now it’s show 79% charged. How odd though that it’s holding the charge so long. I will promise myself not to charge it again and only sync to my iPhone weekly via Bluebooth and see if this thing will keep going and going for months. If so, and it’s not a bug, great job Nike on improving battery life on these things.