For those of you who are short on time and too much in a haste to tie your laces, for those who find it too cumbersome and for those that simply cannot bend or be bothered to tie their shoe laces, Nike have anticipated your needs and delivered a self-lacing shoe – Nike HyperAdapt 1.0. The first performance vehicle for Nike’s latest platform breakthrough, adaptive lacing – Nike HyperAdapt 1.0 is the result of deep research in digital, electrical and mechanical engineering into a product designed for movement.
It challenges traditional understanding of fit, proposing a solution to individual idiosyncrasies in lacing and tension preference.
Apart from the common user, the potential of adaptive lacing for the athlete is huge, as it would provide tailored-to-the-moment custom fit. It is amazing to consider a shoe that senses what the body needs in real-time. That eliminates a multitude of distractions, including mental attrition, and thus truly benefits performance. Functional simplicity reduces a typical athlete’s concern, distraction. When you step in, your heel will hit a sensor and the system will automatically tighten. There are two buttons on the side to tighten and loosen. You can adjust it until it fits perfectly.
The innovation solves another enduring athlete-equipment quandary: the ability to make swift micro-adjustments. Undue pressure caused by tight tying and slippage resulting from loose laces are now relics of the past. Precise, consistent, personalized lockdown can now be manually adjusted on the fly. The challenge was to embed the technical components into such a small space that the design moves with the body and absorbs the same force the athlete is facing. A series of prototypes were developed and following several trials, Nike arrived at an underfoot-lacing mechanism.
Nike HyperAdapt 1.0 is the first step into the future of adaptive performance. It’s currently manual (i.e., athlete controlled) but it makes feasible the once-fantastic concept of an automated, nearly symbiotic relationship between the foot and shoe. The first generation of the HyperAdapt 1.0 is available in the USA and the price is $720.
