[CES 2011] Nike’s TomTom Powered GPS SportWatch

By Andrew Liszewski

Realizing that not everyone likes to jog or run with an iPod strapped to their arm, Nike has created a new watch that works in tandem with their in-shoe Nike+ Sensor and provides the same functionality already built-into the iPods and their iPhone app. The advantage to using this watch though is that it’s not only waterproof, but it also features TomTom GPS hardware built-in. So while it’s keeping track of your steps via the in-shoe sensor, it’s also tracking where they’ve been taken, allowing your route to be analyzed on the Nikeplus.com website. And in order to keep things simple and battery life as lengthy as possible, the watch syncs to your PC, and the Nike+ website, via a USB connector integrated into the watch strap.

The watch sports an inverted monochrome LCD display and a robust UI that’s easy to navigate via a couple of buttons on the side of the case. And besides just keeping track of how far you’ve run and where you’ve been, the watch will also compare your performance against past results to let you know if you’ve improved, and of course will even nag you when you haven’t gotten out for a bit of exercise in a while. The Nike+ SportWatch GPS will be available on April 1, and while not specified, we were told that pricing should be comparable to other GPS-equipped watches already on the market.

[ Nike+ SportWatch GPS ]