Tag Archives: Nike+

Nike+ Sportwatch Teardown

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I bought this watch back in ~2013 and used it track my runs for several years. I recently got an Android watch which also had a built-in GPS, so gave the Nike+ SportWatch to my wife. After a few months of using it, she could no longer download her runs. I wrote about this previously.

With no real use for it, I decided I’d open it up and see what makes it tick.

While iFixit has some nice photo guides to disassemble and replace different components, and someone even replaced the entire USB cable, this video shows a complete teardown and takes a look at some of the components used inside the now defunct Nike+ SportWatch.

The teardown is pretty straightforward. There are 6 screws on the back of the watch, that once cleaned of accumulated dirt come off quite easily. The back then separates from the front, with a half of the strap attached to each.

The back half contains the battery, and the front half the rest of the components and USB cable. The USB cable is soldered to the PCBA, so has to be desoldered to continue the teardown. Another two screws hold the PCBA in place.

The LCD comes straight out, but its backlight is held in place by a melted support that must be cut, and has to be unhooked from the bluetooth antenna. The last thing to open up is the shield can, which has many small, tight tabs holding it in place.

Other info:

  • US design patent US D636,686
  • KCC registration: KCC-REM-NSW-GP132
    • I was hoping there’d be an FCC registration, as then all the testing documentation is available, but I could only find reference to the KCC.

Features:

  • GPS
  • Backlit LCD Screen
  • Tap sensor
  • Lithium Ion battery
  • Built-in USB cable/connector
  • Pairs with:
    • Polar Wearlink + Transmitter (heart rate monitor)
    • Shoepod Nike+ Sensor

Components Used:

  • TI MSP430
    • Main microcontroller
    • Marked as M430V317, unsure which exact spec component it is.
    • 7x7mm BGA, most likely includes the USB interface.
  • NRF 24L01+
    • Bluetooth connection
  • Lithium Ion Battery
    • B&K E332430 170mAh 3.7V 0.63Wh
    • E130910-DV33-11
  • Uknown
    • U4 looks like an IMU, and the watch did have a tap functionality
    • U3 is almost certainly 16Mb of Flash Memory, but unclear which manufacturer.
      • Marking of 2SP16 matches Micron, but the form factor doesn’t
    • The actual GPS circuitry is likely custom TomTom hardware, and not off the shelf components.
Diagram of Nike+ Sportwatch PCBA with main components labelled
Diagram of Nike+ Sportwatch PCBA – rear

Nike+ SportWatch – DO NOT BUY

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tl;dr: The software this watch (and the Fuel Band) requires to work correctly has been discontinued by Nike. The watches are no longer worth anything. Don’t buy one. – link to Nike announcement. If you’re looking for an alternative try the Garmin Forerunner, or even a Huawei Watch.

In 2013 I bought a Nike+ SportWatch. It’s nothing amazing, but at the time it was a well-priced GPS watch which let me track my running and cycling (kind of). It’s major drawback at the time was that the only way to get data off the watch was to sync it with the Nike+ servers by plugging it in to USB and using their proprietary software. This wasn’t a major issue. But now it is.

I’ve since upgraded to a WearOS watch with built in GPS, so I can just run the Strava app. As such I gave my watch to my wife. Recently she plugged it in to upload the data. Trying to sync results in a “Couldn’t connect to NikePlus” message. Clicking help results in a “Forbidden” page access message.

What you see when you click Help in the Nike+ app

Eventually after searching a bit I find out that Nike have decided to discontinue support of the watch. Nike+ Link. For most products this would be okay, you’d still be able to download a GPX file to your PC and upload it to your service of choice. But Nike+ software never offered this feature. And in shutting down their servers they have completely abandoned their customers.

Message on Nike+ support page

To an extent I can understand this. They stopped manufacturing devices in 2015, and can’t be expected to support them forever. What I can’t excuse is that they failed to offer an alternative, when a very simple one exists. The original software effectively downloaded the data to a PC, compiled it into a GPX file and uploaded it to the Nike+ servers (source). They just never made that GPX file available to the user. But this is the perfect opportunity to do this. As opposed to dropping support completely.

What is further concerning is that people continue to sell the product on E-bay without providing warnings about the product’s obvious problem. Likewise on Amazon.

In 2014, Leendert van Duijn and Hristo Dimitrov published a paper titled “Information retrieval from a TomTom Nike+ smart watch“. In this paper they documented some of their efforts to intercept the communication and figure out the comm protocol the watch uses. They made some inroads, but didn’t fully decrypt the data.

Using their guidelines I’ve managed to download what I believe is data from a run, but have no way to decrypt it. I hope someone else is able to figure it out and make this perfectly acceptable watch useful again.