Review: Connected shoes take the intelligence (and the weight) off your wrist.
Credit: Valentina Palladino
Video shot/edited by Jennifer Hahn.
Under Armour has been quietly building a connected fitness empire for a while. Over the past couple of years, the sports apparel company has purchased MyFitnessPal, Endomondo, and MapMyRun, and recently it launched a number devices at CES to accompany those integral software pieces. One of those things—the $150 Speedform Gemini 2 smart running shoes—are smart in the most subtle way. The shoes have sensors built into their soles, allowing them to track running stats including distance, calories, and pace.
Since Under Armour has been designing athletic wear for years, it’s a strategic move to take one of its most beloved sneaker designers and incorporate connected components into it. While the shoes are more limited than other $150 fitness trackers, they make up for it by being especially convenient.
Design: Just an ordinary shoe—on the surface
Anyone could mistake these Gemini 2s for plain ol’ running shoes. They have the exact same design as Under Armour’s regular Gemini 2 running shoes, featuring breathable fabric, durability-enhancing molded toe caps, molded 4D foam and “Charged Cushioning” support, and a lightweight build. The smart sensors are embedded into the soles so you’ll never feel them or see them.
The only way you can tell there’s something special about them is from the “Record Equipped” label on the footbed and at the base of the laces on top of the shoes. There are no extraneous ports, holes, or other electronic orifices because the shoes don’t require charging. Yes, that’s right—this piece of smart clothing doesn’t need to be charged. Under Armour claims the shoes will withstand up to 450 miles of activity before they need to be traded in for a new pair.
That’s both good and bad, depending on how you look at it. Let’s say you run five miles per day, five days per week. The smart Gemini 2 shoes will last about 18 weeks at that pace, which translates to about four of five months of use. You’ll have to shell out $150 about twice a year if you want to keep tracking progress with the shoes. That’s less cost effective than buying one $150 wrist-bound tracker that you can charge over and over, but having the tech embedded into shoes you’ll be wearing anyway certainly wins the convenience factor.
Under Armour’s smart Gemini 2 sneakers look nearly identical to its regular Gemini 2 shoes. Valentina Palladino
Features: What was on your wrist is even better in your shoes
The best aspect of the Gemini 2 smart sneakers is that you don’t have to remember an extra component when you want to go out for a run. You’ll have to lace up when you want to run anyway, so putting the smarts in your soles makes sense for those who run frequently. The sensors in the Gemini 2s track distance, calories, pace, and cadence while you run, relaying all that information to MapMyRun.
Pairing the shoes initially is super easy. Since there are no ports or wires to deal with, you simply shake the right shoe when you want to connect them via Bluetooth to MapMyRun. Once they’re paired, they just have to be within Bluetooth range for the app to sync with them and retrieve data. Connecting the shoes each time was really quick, although sometimes syncing information from shoe to app took a few extra minutes.
You can either run with your smartphone, which will allow you to see real-time stats if you pause for a breather, or you can leave your phone at home. Under Armour created the shoes with an auto start feature, and with that turned on, you can just put on the shoes and go running. Your workout information will be synced once you open the app and sync again.
I had some issues with the auto start feature at first. I was under the impression that any activity I did with the shoes on would be recorded in MapMyRun as an activity when I synced the shoes. The few times I did that, the shoes didn’t recognize my walks or jogs if didn’t “start” them in MapMyRun first. An Under Armour representative explained that auto start will only work when you’re really running—at a pace 12 minutes per mile at least—and during my attempts, I was only walking.
There is beauty in the simplicity of these shoes, but of course you could get more features for your money elsewhere. The $150 Fitbit Charge HR tracks everything the Gemini 2 smart shoes do (it’s also compatible with MapMyRun, among other apps), and it monitors daily activity, sleep, and heart rate. However, what you give up in feature count with the shoes you gain in convenience—much like with the Sensoria smart sports bra. You could spend the same amount of money (or less) on an all-purpose fitness tracker, but it’ll just be another device you need to remember before you head out the door. The Gemini 2 sneakers, along with most pieces of smart clothing, are hoping that convenience becomes as much of an enticing feature as any other bullet point on a fitness tracker spec sheet.
MapMyRun and Under Armour Record: Your mobile portal for all things running
The Gemini 2 sneakers work with the app MapMyRun. Under Armour owns the running app, and there’s a dedicated page where you can connect external devices via Bluetooth to the app. You can pair Under Armour-branded products, but the company’s goal has always been to keep its software platforms open. You can pair trackers from Jawbone, Withings, Fitbit, Garmin, and other while also syncing extraneous devices including heart rate monitors, bike cadence sensors, and stride sensors.
Aside from pairing the shoes with the app, there’s not much you have to do in order to start tracking workouts. The homepage shows you a map of where you are, and a button at the bottom will start your run. The top settings to pay most attention to are the activity square, which lets you designate what exercise you’re about to do (outdoor run, treadmill run, walk, hike, bike, etc) and the gear square, which should show your Gemini 2 shoes if they are properly connected.
Connect the Gemini 2 shoes by going to the “Connected Apps and Devices” page.
The other options are for the detail-oriented among us: you can turn on coaching, which will pump a person’s voice in your ear telling you how to run to achieve your set goals; you can filter your music into MapMyRun, which will then log all of the songs you listen to during your workout kind of like an audio diary; and you can select a pre-made running routine if you’re running outdoors and have no idea where you want to go. As someone who doesn’t run every day, I really enjoyed this feature because MapMyRun’s “Route Genius” used my phone’s GPS to create over 20 different running courses for me that start close to my apartment. The courses ranged in distance from two to 13 miles, and having so many options eliminated any excuse I had for not going outside to run.
In addition to the stats you can track using MapMyRun and the Gemini 2 sneakers, you also get all the benefits the app already offered. There’s a feed of your recorded workouts where you can review and edit stats, and there’s a feed of the workouts your friends have done and shared over MapMyRun. The Challenges page is similar to the app’s Route Genius as it gives you a number of exercise prompts to complete from brands like ESPN and Sports Authority. There are also pages where you can view and edit your profile, changing settings for everything including your smart sneakers, other connected devices, fitness goals, and more.
One of the options in the Settings page is “24/7 Activity,” which lets you track everything a daily activity tracker would including weight, sleep, and steps. However, it will only aggregate activity you’ve synced via MapMyRun—in order to get a full picture of your daily step count, you’ll have to connect a device that is built to do that, such as a Fitbit, Misfit, or Jawbone activity tracker. (Again, Under Armour’s Gemini 2 sneakers only track runs, not all of the steps you take in a day.)
Under Armour makes it super easy to share information between the apps that it owns—so much so that I opened the UA Record app to find that all my activity information that I originally synced to MapMyRun was already accounted for. Comparatively, Record is definitely the umbrella app that Under Armour hopes you use to get an overview of your daily activity, sleep, and nutrition. Here, you can add things like workouts you completed, food you ate, and hours you slept. Record also filters in information from apps like MyFitnessPal so you don’t have to worry about logging progress in two separate places.
For those who’d rather be running, affordable convenience is achieved
Under Armour’s Gemini 2 sneakers are not the first smart shoes, but they could be the ones that start making smart shoes stick with everyday athletes. Nike developed smart shoes to detect how high athletes jump (think the next Lebron), and Xiaomi recently announced a pair of $30 smart sneakers that have yet to come to fruition. Under Armour’s sneakers are a reality and rather than trying to appeal to niche athletes, they’re suitable for anyone who likes to run no matter their skill or dedication level. They track all kinds of activities including indoor and outdoor running, walking, and cycling, they have the comfort of the regular Gemini 2 shoes, and unlike most fitness devices, there’s no charging involved.
In fact, the idea that you may have to buy another pair of these shoes is the biggest downside. The battery will last for about 450 miles of use, so while they don’t have the longevity of chargeable fitness tracker, they’re much less likely to be left unused at the bottom of a drawer. Having the technology to track running stats embedded into a required piece of clothing reduces the chance that you’ll stop using it. However, make no mistake: these shoes are for runners and will not replace a daily activity tracker since they’re not meant to be worn all day. In that respect, running enthusiasts will get the most out of the Gemini 2s, while anyone simply wanting to monitor step count can stick to smart wristbands.
But what’s really intriguing about the smart Gemini 2s is their price compared to the originals. The regular shoes cost $130 and the smart sneakers are only slightly more expensive at $150. That’s a much easier gap to jump than, say, trying to go from a regular $30 athletic shirt to a $400 smart shirt that tracks your breathing, heart rate, and a bunch of other stats. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come in the smart clothing world, and eventually we won’t have to pay exorbitantly more for a healthy mix of features and convenience.
The Good
- Look and feel just like regular shoes—no extra parts or wires to worry about, no charging required.
- Auto tracking feature makes it easy to go for a run at any time, with or without your phone handy.
- The shoes seamless integrate with MapMyRun and work well with all of the app’s features.
The Bad
- Battery life is questionable—if Under Armour’s prediction is true, runners might have to spend $150 twice a year to sustain working pairs of the shoes.
- These are not “wear all day” sneakers and they won’t replaced a standard activity tracker.
The Ugly
- For serious runners, that 450 mile marker will come super quickly, meaning you’ll have to shell out more cash even sooner.
Valentina reviews consumer electronics for Ars Technica, testing all kinds of gadgets with a focus on mobile devices and wearables. She has a soft spot for Chromebooks.
