Who watched Back to the Future II as a kid and really wanted the shoes Marty McFly wore? You can bet everyone at OFOUR is a fan of BTTF, except one who was way too young to appreciate it… You know who you are! Anyway, as of a couple of years ago, you have the option to own shoes similar to what McFly wore! In late 2016/early 2017, Nike released the Hyperadapt Self Lacing shoes made by Tinker Hatfield and Tiffany Beers. These shoes were made with the sole intention of bringing shoes that lace themselves to reality.

 

Let’s start off with the box. The. Box. Is. Massive. These shoes come in a giant box that makes you feel justified for paying the outrageous price these sell at… for Nike shoes. It is designed quite nicely and the inside shows a compartment for every item the shoes require.

 

The shoes come with magnetic charging cables (weird to say that you need to charge your shoes, eh?) that attach to the motor found on the outsole of the shoe. The shoes light up indicating its power level, but the battery boasts an average 14 hour run time. They’ll easily last 2+ weeks of lacing and unlacing, but I don’t know if you’d want to wear these daily. They’re honestly too cool to wear down; I personally would have these as a collector’s item and only wear them under specific circumstances and rarely. I’d make sure I’m not going anywhere with rain – and living in Dubai, that shouldn’t be a problem.

 

The design itself is kind of basic, but I think that’s what Nike was going for. Shoes that look unassuming but have other-worldly features under the hood. The ones we have are the black colorway with different shades of black with green and teal splatters over the sides of the shoes. The shoes are lighter than they look and what you would think. Tiffany Beers really did an amazing job balancing the technological requirements and the comfort to make these shoes amazing.

 

Let’s talk about the laces now. They are this hard Kevlar-like material that feels virtually untearable and unbreakable. They have this cool black and white design, and if you look closely, you’ll see strings that attach to each lace that is part of the pulley mechanic that tightens and loosens them. Typically, the laces tighten right when you put your heel down when putting the shoes on, but if you want to tighten them more, or want to take them off, there are buttons hidden neatly near the top-most lace that you can use to manually control the laces. There is a relatively loud whirring noise when you operate the laces, but that might be a good thing – you want people to notice them, don’t you?!

 

Wondering who E.A.R.L. is? It’s not a who, but a what. E.A.R.L. stands for Electro Adaptive Reactive Lacing, and Nike really wanted to highlight that. They put it on the left shoe’s tongue and on the insole of both shoes right above their trademark swoosh. I would have assumed they would rather put Hyperadapt somewhere on the shoe instead of E.A.R.L. It kind of seems out of place for me, but I guess it’s cool.

 

Ultimately, these are the more available, non-limited edition, versions of the Nike MAG that was releases the year prior. Those were extremely difficult to cop but they were the first true iteration of self-lacing shoes. These are also the Hyperadapt 1.0, meaning there’s a 2.0, but they aren’t exactly named that. What released just a few months ago are the Hyperadapt BBs. These are meant to be more functional shoes for anyone who plays basketball. Even some pros are wearing them on the court; meaning this could be the future of basketball shoes – laces that adapt to you and provide the ultimate security when playing basketball. They are also a LOT cheaper than the 1.0!

 

For me, these are awesome shoes and should be purchased if you’re a big sneakerhead… as long as you can afford them. Otherwise, I’d say get the Hyperadapt BBs as they’re more advanced and much cheaper (price-wise, not quality). Regardless, the Hyperadapt 1.0 helped carve the way for even more iterations and adaptations of self lacing shoes and gave a great benchmark for the BBs to surpass. Only the future knows what will come next.

 

Kareem Hamwi