Nike’s fitness app has evolved into a fitness platform

Nike must have been pretty confident when it decided to enter the world of health tracking hardware all by itself but the decision has clearly paid off. Now the company is taking things a step further and is expanding its Nike+ app to third-party devices. The company has already formed partnerships with four new hardware companies: Garmin, Netpulse, Tom Tom, and Wahoo Fitness.

After going it alone with health tracking hardware, Nike is expanding relationships to use its Nike+ app with non-Nike devices. The company announced four new hardware partners on Friday — Garmin, Tom Tom, Wahoo Fitness and Netpulse — with a new “Partners” app feature to connect the Nike+ app with third-party devices. “The updated Nike+ Running App makes pairing with the new partners easy. Users will see a “Partners” screen when they update or download the app. The “Connect a Partner” button guides users to settings to manage preferences and establish the seamless connection between Nike+ and the partner apps and devices.” The idea here is to expand the use of Nike+ and give the app’s users more freedom to choose a wearable device or software platform. That’s a sharp change from Nike’s several-year approach of exercise tracking with devices ranging from footpod step-trackers and, more recently, its FuelBand wearable band.