Nike has announced it is scaling back it’s wearable technology efforts. Moving forward the company is looking to partner with hardware manufacturers and will focus mainly on software. While the Nike+ Fuelband line has been very successfully, with over 30 users, they are hoping this new approach with allow even more people to make use of the technology behind Fuelband. The news came as a surprise to most but there were signs of trouble brewing in Beaverton.
First came news that one of the lead hardware designers for Nike, Ben Shaffer, had been hired away by Apple. This was followed by a highly anticipated but fairly meager update to Nike’s existing Fuelband, the Fuelband SE. With Tim Cook sitting on Nike’s board it will be interesting to see what direction Nike’s new software focused path takes them, there certainly isn’t a lack of devices coming to market that would love to have the Nike name associated with it.
