Nike+iPod Sport Kit gets FCC thumbs up

If you think Apple would put something through the FCC without a restrictive confidentiality agreement, you're crazy, but the good news is the FCC's given the Nike Apple dyad the nod for their new Nike+iPod Sport Kit. The only interesting thing we found (besides those closeups of the rear of both devices -- massively unexciting stuff), was the transmission frequency: 2425MHz. That's not Bluetooth folks, sorry if you were hoping it'd turn out to be an Apple sanctioned Bluetooth transceiver for your iPod, that just ain't gonna happen (yet).

[Morton Salty @ May 24th 2006 6:12PM]

Something even way more interesting is this. The receiver was designed by Apple the the Nike egg though doesn't say made by Apple... so, we can assume that if this goes well since it was designed by Apple could be used with other receivers from creative, microsoft, sony, iriver and the like in their MP3 players.

[MacroEQ @ May 24th 2006 6:15PM]

lol I love it... Nike.. Apple... and it's made in China.

[menwuuur @ May 24th 2006 6:18PM]

if they can do this, why arnt we seeing 3rd party wifi adaptors?

[David:moua @ May 24th 2006 6:23PM]

Bluetooth consumption is too high (i dont see people change battery of their shoes every day/weeks).

It's probably a technology similar to zigbee, with even lower coverage/consumption.

But i don't see any CE logo there :(
I will not be sold outside north America ?

[David:moua]

[gv @ May 24th 2006 6:26PM]

2425MHz (or 2.425 GHz)

That sure is a Bluetooth frequency!
Europe & USA: 2400 - 2483.5 MHz

from Bluetooth.com:
Bluetooth technology operates in the unlicensed industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band at 2.4 to 2.485 GHz, using a spread spectrum, frequency hopping, full-duplex signal at a nominal rate of 1600 hops/sec. The 2.4 GHz ISM band is available and unlicensed in most countries

But we still don't know about the protocol being used.

[David:moua @ May 24th 2006 6:27PM]

Humm...

Wasn't these photos confidential ?

http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/forms/blobs/retrieve.cgi?attachment_id=661436&native_or_pdf=pdf

[David:moua]

[Ned Porting @ May 24th 2006 6:57PM]

Apple, as always, is rowing against the current. If it wasn't for graphic artists, I doubt the good old Mac's would still be around by now.

Not that I prefer Windows over MacOS.. Actually, quite the opposite. But Apple seems to be swimming in a sea (or a pond) of dreams. Sure, the iPod is a mega-hit.. But the way of the future is through open source. Not patented code.

[Maurice @ May 24th 2006 7:11PM]

"Apple, as always, is rowing against the current."

Yeah, is that why 9 out of 10 wireless keyboards & mice have their own proprietary, non-Bluetooth dongles to plug in? I don't know of any wireless Apple device that doesn't use a standard comm protocol (Infrared, Bluetooth, 802.11 a/b/g)

[ron g @ May 24th 2006 7:16PM]

You didn't have to wait around for the FCC to discover this. It says right on the product's page (in a big H3 HTML tagged font size):

"Broadcast frequency: 2.4GHz (proprietary protocol)"

The reason, as someone else already explained, is that Bluetooth takes to much power. The batteries in this device are meant to last its lifetime. No one else has designed a protocal like this so Apple had to.

[Jim @ May 24th 2006 7:21PM]

The Nike/Apple website says that the sensor that goes in the shoe has a battery that cannot be replaced. I don't know how it's done with the current Nike/Polar/Timex systems on the market but I'm assuming that those sensors have batteries that can be replaced. I'm interested in how this is all going to hash out. I'm VERY interested although I'm upset that this system won't work with my Air Max 360's that I bought just 4 months ago. I would hope that you could just attach the sensor to your shoe somehow but I bet that would mess with whatever data gets sent to the iPod.

[laurnick1 @ Mar 2nd 2008 3:52PM]

Go to this website, I ordered one for all of my siblings and they work GREAT. I wasn't interested in having to go buy the exact shoe for the sensor, so this fit our needs just fine (and cheaply!!)
http://podophile.com/

[Lord of My Pants @ May 24th 2006 7:27PM]

Jim, running shoes should be replaced every 4 months (or more) anyway, if you are really pounding the pavement.

[Jason @ May 24th 2006 7:45PM]

A friend of mine works at the company that Apple/Nike is leveraging the technology from (licensed it). The protocol is not an industry standard, its actually designed for extremely low power usage (doesn't constantly broadcast), and is extremely cheap to manufacture. The algorithms used to acquire this data are pretty cool and the other products being designed around this tech are also very interesting. My friend walks around with a "pod" on his foot constantly to test it and I constantly give him a hard time, but at least he's forced to walk a lot for work now.

[Shmoe @ May 24th 2006 8:01PM]

Pointless. Another add-on gadget for a device that only does one thing without add ons. Why spend so much money for special shoes and this device just to know how far you've run/calories burned. Bah.

[Jon @ May 24th 2006 8:21PM]

Jim, the battery in a polar watch is replaceable, but the battery in the chest strap is not. It is rated for ~10,000 hours, and you send it back when it runs out. They swap the battery for a small fee.

1000 hours is a lot of running, for me it would be about 4 years. I can afford to buy a new one every 4 years ( how consumerized I am ).

What I would like to see is support for a heart rate monitor as well. My Polar can upload its data to a PC and track your progress on their website, which is very nice. With the Nike thing I would end up with two upload tasks and two different sites with no correlation. I would much prefer to have a client app to do analysis of that data, with everything being stored in the ipod.

[Sean @ May 24th 2006 10:50PM]

Considering the number of kinetic energy watches I've seen and the fact that running or walking would provide the sensor with enough juice to transmit data I would think some form of kinetic power would be ideal for one of these devices.

[tekdroid @ May 24th 2006 11:45PM]

User-replaceable batteries, Apple. It not a difficult concept. It was the standard once upon a time, when companies weren't so greedy and natural resources were valued a little more.

[nonobeez @ May 25th 2006 1:18AM]

#13

User replaceable betteries would compromise the waterproof and moistureproof design.

[tekdroid @ May 25th 2006 2:43AM]

#14, there are plenty of devices that are waterproof that have replaceable batteries. Waterproof digital cameras, Sports walkmans, watches, etc.

[Derin K @ May 25th 2006 5:13AM]

xD have a look at the fcc id number, enjoy

[smudley @ May 25th 2006 8:24AM]

Agent 86 this is Maxwell Smart. I think Chaos is close. Dont look now but I have a haunting suspicion my Shoephone will ring soon... very, very soon.

[Bob Starr @ May 25th 2006 9:44AM]

The wireless technology described sounds exactly like Dynastream's ANT protocol:

http://thisisant.com

[Gordy @ May 25th 2006 10:57AM]

Well, if you don't like it...save your $30 for an iPod/shoe combo with replaceable batteries. BTW, you might need more than $30.

Man, this setup is gonna get hacked to death! I can't wait for the iPodLinux folks to get at it.

[three60 @ May 25th 2006 11:21AM]

I don't see why people are complaining about the lack of replaceable batteries. You can be pretty much guaranteed that you will need to replace your shoes far more often than the battery on the transmitter.

If the shoe-unit gets 1000 hours of use, that's pretty damned good and much more than most people will use over a couple of years. I train for marathons and run about 800 miles/year and at an 8 mph pace that works out to about 100 hours of running. At this rate, the battery would last 10 years, far longer than I would ever need it to. For what it's worth, I also burn through 2-3 pairs of $100+ shoes, plus many gallons of gatorade which make the $29 Nike+ investment just a drop in the bucket.

[David:moua @ May 25th 2006 12:14PM]

I don't see any power off button, and i don't want to.

So, the system in the shoes must "work" 24/365 = 8760h/year

The system must work everytime, not only when you are running (what about just walking ?).

Kynetic system would be ideal, 'cause i don't see people change battery of their shoes.

[Bracken @ May 25th 2006 4:26PM]

Pretty lame that it's only for the nano. I'm guessing that's because the nano is flash whereas the iPod is a hard drive. They probably don't want to encourage running with a hard drive on your arm, because when they stop working people will blame the running. Hopefully the next-gen iPods will be flash, and support the Nike setup.

[Anders @ May 26th 2006 3:03PM]

What about the Model no? The receiver is A1191, and the transmitter is A1193, what is product No A1192, then... room for speculation. I guess it would be a heart rate monitor or bike speedo kit :)

[ipodsportkit.com @ Jun 20th 2006 12:57AM]

The original source of the battery life appears to be from a May 24 BusinessWeek article:
"Other technical challenges centered on the duration of the battery power (close to 1,000 hours)."

It looks like the Sport Kit will last through the life of about five pairs of running shoes. Not bad if you ask me. I posted an article about the battery life on my blog here:
http://ipodsportkit.com/2006/06/how-long-will-battery-last.html

[Uli @ Jun 21st 2006 1:59PM]

So if it is sending in the bluetooth band, do you think it might be possible to simply catch the signal with an ordinary bluetooth device? So that you may be able to just use the sensor for other stuff?