Nike released their brand new Nike HyperAdapt 1.0 also known as the self-tying shoe. Of course this raises the question, what is this innovative self-tying shoe? Well, it is exactly as it says a shoe that will tie himself around your foot without you having to do anything. How do you wonder? Let’s explain this.
The self-tying shoe becomes alive whenever you put your foot into the shoe. At the moment you place your foot in the shoe the shoe will shape himself around your foot. Whenever the shoe feels some sort of tension in certain areas of your feet, the shoe will stop tightening. The bottom of the shoe exists out of a ‘bottom plastic house’, this plastic case consists of a charger (since the shoe works on batteries) and fly wires that comes up through both sides of the shoes, which makes it able for the shoe to wrap himself around your foot.
This does not mean that whenever you put the shoe on and it is wrapped around your foot that you cannot change the tightness. So whenever you feel the urge to loosen or tighten the shoe, this is possible by pressing on one of the buttons on top of the shoe, its located near the tongue. One of the button will tighten the shoe the other one will loosen it. So whenever you engage in a certain sport and you feel that your feet get swollen, it will only take you one or two seconds to change the tightness or looseness of the shoe by pressing on one of the buttons.
Since these shoes work on electronic it is important that you charge them on time otherwise the shoe will no longer work. There are certain lights on the shoe that indicate the amount of fuel that is left in your shoe. The blue colour means that the battery is fully charged, the yellow colour means that you only have a few more days left before you have to charge them and the red colour means that it’s a ‘charge now or run out of battery situation’. The batteries last for about 2 weeks and it takes 3 hours to charge them.
We can state that this a great innovative project which will ease the life comfort of many people. Especially people with disabilities will greatly benefit from this new technology. It is stated that the shoe might even prevent people from injuries because it reacts on tension part of the feet. But as dr Hatfield says ‘If your feet are not healthy, there’s kind of a chain reaction, and your entire body can get out of whack’. So this shoe might actually do more than just wrapping itself around your foot.
But if you look at this in perspective it does raise the question are we just being lazy that we do not feel like tighten our shoes ourselves of will this really reduce injuries and therefore increase the healthiness of the people?
Sources:
Wired(n.d.), https://www.wired.com/2016/09/nike-self-lacing-design-hyperadapt/. Retrieved on 21-09-2016
Griffin, A.,(March 2016), http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/nike-hyperadapt-10-company-launches-real-self-tying-shoes-a6936291.html. Retrieved on 21-09-2016
Facebook (September 2016), https://www.facebook.com/wired/videos/10154013698188721/?pnref=story. Retrieved on 21-09-2016
