Nike has debuted a pair of entirely hands-free sneakers, named the Nike GO FlyEase.
The accessible shoes allow the wearer to slip them on and off without the need to bend down and fasten your foot inside.
It uses an innovative bi-stable hinge that enables the shoe to be secure in fully open and fully closed states.
The GO FlyEase were spawned from an internal Nike design competition and uses the patent-pending hinge for ease of use taking the shoe off and putting it on.
“The challenges in getting to the GO FlyEase were plentiful, even with a simple-looking design. “There were engineering things we had to figure out,” Design lead Sarah Reinertsen told Forbes.
“The bistable hinge. We’ve never put a hinge in a shoe. That was a piece of engineering that was really tricky to figure out.”
Nike debuted FlyEase technology five years ago and it has employed in numerous footwear styles across basketball, running and sportswear.
FlyEase was originally inspired by Matthew Walzer in 2012, a then-teenager with cerebral palsy who wrote to Nike asking for more disability-friendly shoes. Nike then invited him to collaborate in the design of the original adaptive Nike FlyEase shoe.
The Nike GO FlyEase is available initially via invite for select Nike Members, with broader consumer availability planned for later this year.
