Sportswear behemoth Nike has announced plans to bring the world’s first self-tying shoe to market.
It’s called the , and it’ll hit store shelves later this year.
“When you step in, your heel will hit a sensor and the system will automatically tighten,” said Nike’s senior innovation chief and the project’s technical lead Tiffany Beers in a press release.
From that baseline fit, you can fine-tune the shoe’s settings on the fly. “Then there are two buttons on the side to tighten and loose. You can adjust it until it’s perfect.”
The HyperAdapt’s the culmination of years of research, Nike said.
They’re the brainchild of
Tinker Hatfield, designer of Nike’s iconic Air Jordan and Air Max footwear lines, who
began collaborating
with Beers and Nike chief Mark Parker more than
five years ago on shoes that could tighten themselves. The primary challenge? Miniaturizing the sophisticated electronics needed to power, drive, and control the shoes.
The first experiment emerged in the form of snowboard boots.
performing trials with a number of systems before settling on one
that tightens from the bottom of the shoe up.
The tech made its first public debut on October 21 of
last year, when Nike sent shoes outfitted with the tech to
Back to the Future star
Michael J. Fox. “We started creating something for fiction and we turned it into fact, inventing a new technology that will benefit all athletes,” Parker said at the time.