cross-posted from: https://mstdn.social/users/tekkie/statuses/112037167186333009
Image description: Installation progress bar running for software upgrade of the Under Armour running shoes
(Originally published earlier today on mstdn.social)
" having to " is a weird way of saying if you go out of your way to buy these shoes specifically designed to track how far you walk/run and your cadence. This is extremely optional and definitely won’t be something your normal shoe experiences.
Why are we like this?
Based on no investigation, I would guess this is a running shoe. The app will track steps, distance, pace, mile times… all the stats joggers care about. Yes, there are apps to do all of this anyway, but I would assume with these shoes, you get much more accurate stats. There’s certainly no way UA has this in every shoe, and the people paying however many hundreds of dollars for these shoes are doing it specifically because of this feature. This isn’t Internet is shit, this is UA making a useful product for a smaller market base.
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Pedometers only measure steps taking. Not the distance of each step, your cadence, any uneasiness in your footing, or even more advanced things like wind resistance.
If you’re just someone who goes for walks and doesn’t care then a pedometer is fine. But if you’re serious about it you want something in/attached to your shoe to measure those things.
I think I would love to use some shoes that track how uneven my gait(?) is and if I need mismatched soles to correct it. An uneven walk can ruin hips.
My co worker has something he clips onto his laces for runs. I’d suggest something like this vs shoes that need to be thrown away in a year.
His device is like 5 years old, runs on a CR2032, and still works flawlessly. Not sure what the battery life is like if you’re using it every day for casual walking since it’s designed for exercising.
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Steve Jobs: We’re proud to announce the iPhone!
You: isn’t this why we invented fucking CAMERAS and PHONES and PDAs and GARMIN
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Combining the thing you run in and the thing that tracks your running seems kind of obvious to me for the small market of people who wear specific shoes only when doing runs they want to track.
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I love when people get pissy about stuff like this. If you want it, great. If you don’t, buy other shoes or don’t use it.
What’s it going to do? Stop being a shoe if you don’t connect it to your phone?
Devices that can lock you out with their smart functionality and you don’t have a say in, I get. Things like the Roku TVs forcing new arbitration policies and ovens included with a house that have mandatory firmware updates.
But stuff like this? Who cares? It’s very useful to some people who want advanced gait tracking in the shoe, and it’s completely ignorable for everyone else.
Well there was the story of the three million toothbrushes being used in a DDOS attack but in googling for a link to the story it turned out to be a hoax, so there’s at least that good news to back you up.
I’m sure this is for a cadence sensor which is really nice to have for distance running
What kind of nerd has electronic shoes (besides marty mcfly i mean)?
Distance joggers
AKA fitness nerds
Only if you’re dumb enough to buy those shoes.
