Nike has made some shoes that you can lace up with your smartphone

The dark days of having to tie your shoelaces manually may finally be behind us thanks to the latest innovation from trainer-maker Nike.

It’s all down to the advanced power-lacing system in the Nike Adapt BB you see, coupled with some firmware and an app. The shoe actually has a motor and gear train, apparently, which are able to impart no less than 32 pounds of force through the underfoot lacing, as shown below.

But that’s not the half of it. “That’s where the brain, or FitAdapt tech, kicks in,” effuses the Nike press release. “By manual touch or by using the Nike Adapt app on a smartphone, players can input different fit settings depending on different moments of a game. For example, during a timeout, a player can loosen the shoe before tightening it up as they re-enter the game.

“In a forthcoming feature, they can even prescribe a different tightness setting for warm-ups. Plus, players can opt in to firmware updates for the FitAdapt technology as they become available, sharpening the precision of fit for players and providing new digital services over time.”

This is all wonderfully utopian and anticipated by a clever piece of Nike product placement back in 1989 in the film Back to the Future 2, as shown below. It’s also, of course, one of the best examples of solving first-world problems you’ll ever see. Nonetheless Nike will get some cool marketing out of this and judging by this comprehensive TechCrunch review, some tech kudos too. Can you imagine what a pair would cost though?