Science fiction is known for presenting novel technologies that actually seem plausible but then never materialize. You may have noticed that matter transporters, invisibility cloaks, flying cars, and actual hover boards are all conspicuously missing from our daily lives. But on Wednesday, Nike checked self-lacing shoes, with power laces, off the futurism punch list, debuting the HyperAdapt 1.0. Too bad power laces don’t really seem like an improvement over manual laces.
Nike announced prototype power-lacing shoes last year in time for Oct. 21, 2015, the time-travel setting of 1989’s Back to the Future Part II. The movie famously features power-lacing sneakers—and people have made their own versions over the years—but the technology always seemed like more of a novelty. Nike CEO Mark Parker said in October that, “We started creating something for fiction and we turned it into fact, inventing a new technology that will benefit all athletes.”
The marketing promises don’t stop there. The HyperAdapt 1.0 announcement says that, “The shoe translates deep research in digital, electrical and mechanical engineering into a product designed for movement. It challenges traditional understanding of fit, proposing an ultimate solution to individual idiosyncrasies in lacing and tension preference.” I don’t know about you, but I’ve been saying for years that I have quirky tension preferences.
So how do they work? The sneakers start lacing when you put your foot in and your heel hits a sensor. The shoes also have special buttons for tightening and loosening. Nike says that the setup solves a problem for athletes, since the sneakers allow for quick adjustments without stopping to fully re-tie. “Precise, consistent, personalized lockdown can now be manually adjusted on the fly,” Nike says. Lock those feet down.
Between problems with the mechanism that are bound to arise and dead batteries it seems like HyperAdapt 1.0s could introduce more problems than they solve. They’re definitely on the gimmicky side of snazzy.
