Best Tech of 2012

Nike Fuelband

Most gadgets are really bad for users' health and are best used while sitting. That's not the case with the Nike FuelBand, a gadget that measures users' physical activity and tracks it through mobile apps. While the device isn't perfect, it's the first wearable gadget we've seen people flocking to.

The Nike FuelBand tracks Fuel points, Nike's own activity tracking metric that allows users to compare activity levels across sports and exercise. The FuelBand also tracks steps, calories burned and miles traveled. One common complaint is that the Nike FuelBand isn't perfect at tracking calories and activities. Even with this negative, we love the FuelBand because it's a quick way to see how much activity we've done during the day. One look at the FuelBand and a users can tell how close they are to their healthy level of activity. A low Fuel score at the end of a workday is a good motivator to get out and do something instead of camp out on the couch.

The Nike FuelBand app syncs the activity to the iPhone and to the Nike website. Users can share their activity level with Facebook and Path friends and compete to see who's doing more on any given day. Nike just launched a new app with Nike Fuel missions that challenge users to perform specific activities or earn a set amount of fuel in a given time that could spur more users to get in shape.