Nike+ FuelBand SE

Pros Sporty, sturdy, and comfortable design. Displays time, steps, calories burned, and "fuel" on band. Wirelessly syncs over Bluetooth. Neat group features. Lets you isolate and name special activities. For iOS and Android.

Cons Slightly pricey. Doesn't track distance, stairs climbed, heart rate, skin temperature, or sleep. No auto-detection for specific activities. "Fuel" is murky in meaning. Mobile app exhibited some bugs. Bottom Line The Nike+ FuelBand SE fitness-tracking bangle looks sporty and feels comfortable, but it's priced higher than other devices that measure more meaningful data.

By Jill Duffy The market for fitness trackers—those modern day equivalents of 1980s pedometers—couldn't be more exciting. Wearable technologies help us get more exercise, or at least become more mindful of how sedentary we are so we can start to make a change. The Nike+ FuelBand SE ($149), from the international sports apparel giant, is the second generation of the Nike+ FuelBand series, and it does a decent job of tracking your daily activity and displaying it to you when and where you want to see it.

The bangle is the same form factor as its predecessor, only now with eye-catching accent color options. A few new features and improvements make the SE better than the original FuelBand, but the competition is certainly fierce, and the FuelBand SE's moderately high price makes it $50 more expensive than many of the best trackers on the market, namely the Fitbit One. The Fitbit One simply does more and costs less. Two other Editors' Choice trackers, 
Basis Carbon Steel Edition and, for runners, Garmin Forerunner 15 cost a bit more than the FuelBand SE, but they also include heart rate monitoring (a built-in optical HRM with Basis, and an optional chest strap with the Forerunner), which is huge. Plus, if you're really athletic and workout a lot, you definitely want a device with a heart rate monitor.

Nike measures all your movements regardless of the type of activity, and translates them into "fuel," a unit of measure that Nike invented that I find highly reminiscent of Weight Watcher's proprietary "points." Fuel is a murky concept at first, although it becomes more relevant over time as you get comfortable with how much fuel you earn in an average day, or how much fuel your friends earn. If you prefer tracking calories expended and steps taken, the Nike+ FuelBand SE does indeed allow you to add those metrics (via the iPhone or Android app) so that they'll light up on the dot matrix display on the bracelet any time you want. But you can't see distance traveled, and it doesn't track how many flights of stairs you climb, either, which the Fitbit One does. Want to see your heart rate? The FuelBand SE also can't help you there, as mentioned. In my eyes, you'd buy the Nike+ FuelBand SE if you absolutely love its design. And it's spectacularly sporty and chic. But for capturing a lot of data, you're better off with another product.

Design
The simple matte black rubberized FuelBand SE is a hard bangle with an LED dot matrix display. It snaps into place beneath a little Nike swoosh logo. The Nike+ FuelBand SE currently comes in all black, or black with an accent color—yellow, magenta-pink, and orange. They come in three sizes (S, M/L, XL), and helpful guidelines on Nike's site steer you toward the right size based on height, weight, and sex. Each band comes with two different-sized extender links, so even within each size, there's some wiggle room.

Also included in the package (the packaging itself looks as elegant as anything you'd buy from Apple) is a USB charging cable and sizing tool.

The display, which is super retro-chic, works with an ambient light sensor that detects environmental light and adjusts the brightness automatically. Even in strong sunlight, the FuelBand SE's readouts are totally legible.

Hidden beneath the Nike logo that fastens the band is a connection point that plugs into a USB charger, which also uploads data from the band to your Nike+ account via a Windows or Mac computer.

I like the design quite a bit, really. The simple bracelet doesn't look like much at all, and the accent colors give it a hint of style (I opted for magenta-pink). I really hate fitness gadgets that stand out too much, such as the unsightly and highly visible BodyMedia Fit Core armband ($179.99 plus $6.95 per month). The FuelBand SE, on the other hand, blends right in with casual attire.

The sole button on the SE is practically flush with the rest of the band—not even visible at a distance. Pressing the button lights up the LED display, where you'll find the current day's data: fuel, calories, steps, time, and "hours won" (hours when you were active for at least five consecutive minutes).

The band is water-resistant, but not waterproof. There's no need to panic in a rainstorm, but you should remove it to swim.

Nike+ FuelBand SE in Action
I picked up my band on a Friday morning and started tracking my activity immediately. One new feature on the SE is the ability to record special activities, such as runs, bicycle rides, soccer games, or anything else you want. To activate this feature, you press and hold the button until "START" appears on the band, then press the button once more to begin recording. It's almost like a stopwatch feature, except that when you upload your data to the Nike+ Web account or app later, you'll be able to name this activity and add notes to it, such as the intensity level.

This new feature is a huge step in the right direction, but it doesn't go nearly as far as a recent firmware update for the Basis watch, which now automatically detects the difference between a run, walk, and bicycle ride. The Basis even displays on the watch itself which activity it's sensing and how much time it has recorded for it so far.

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