Sparkfun Electronics, a company that sells electronic components for making prototypes, took apart one the new Nike+iPod devices to learn what makes it tick. It turns out it does not contain an accelerometer, but has a switch that's activated each time you take a step.
Apple sent me one of these gadgets and I love it (disclosure: Nike is a Boing Boing sponsor). It costs $29 and fits in the sole of special Nike shoes (you can also put it in a pouch an attach it to a regular shoe). The data is transmitted to your iPod Nano and when you sync your Nano to your computer, the data is transmitted to Nike, which generates a Web page with your running/walking history. It's neat, but I wish the data could be exported in an open format, so third parties could write applications for it.
[W]e could use this commercially available product (CHEAP! $23.15 internet purchase at time of writing) to monitor where my Grandpa is sleeping, where my 4-year old nephew is playing, or I could automatically turn on/off my lights when I enter my office. Where RFID requires you to physically get near a reader, this active foot pod can transmit over 10-20ft. You don't need to think about getting an RFID card out of your wallet, you just let your shoes do the talking.
Reader comment:
Christian says:
If you look on your iPod and make everything visible, you can find the raw data files from the Nike+ device. I haven't done it in a while, but I believe it's just a list of the times of your foot-strikes, so an open source program to do something with the data should be ridiculously simple. Of course, there's not toooo much point when the current software is both adequate and seamless… but I wouldn't mind seeing the data drop into something that was tracking more than just my running mileage.
Anyway, if you search for that hack on the web, you can find some stuff that will tell you how to add a run in where you might have forgotten your iPod for some reason. It's pretty much copy-paste.
