The Nike Adapt BB is the first self-lacing basketball sneaker, and at $350 it costs a pretty penny for consumers to have the chance to try out the new technology.
The shoe has a little motor in it that tightens and loosens the lacing system inside the shoe to give you what is supposed to be a perfect fit. There are buttons on the shoe that allow users to do this manually, but they’re also supposed to be able to link the sneaker to an app on their phone and create a preferred setting that the shoe will automatically go to for a consistent fit every time.
I say “supposed to” because after the latest Android update, some folks are having an issue with their left sneakers not syncing to the app and, as such, the left shoe is locking up on them.
https://twitter.com/Jaxbot/status/1097631614153175041
Now, some can still manually use the buttons on the bottom of the shoe to still tighten and loosen things, but it’s understandably frustrating that one of the chief features of a $350 pair of shoes doesn’t work. Others have had the motor completely shut down due to the issue, which is a far bigger problem.
This is apparently only an Android issue and, per The Verge, it’s an issue for some early versions of the sneaker that didn’t get the latest version of software.
Nike is, undoubtedly, working on trying to fix this, but for now there’s nothing officially released on the problem and customers have complained Nike support has been unable to help them with it (which is understandable considering it seems to be a tech issue). For anyone running into this issue, I guess just keep your eye out for an update and hope that you’re one of the lucky ones whose motor still works manually.
The first edition of any new technology runs the risk of this sort of issue, and it presents a not so friendly reminder to companies that they need to be sure to be ready to update along with operating systems when an app is as crucial to their product’s functionality as this.
