Jump ropes go high-tech

It's never too late to get in shape, so if you can't afford to pay those crazy gym membership fees, try jumping rope. Jumping rope is a high intensity activity great for your heart, developing agility, coordination, balance, and building strong bones. Strangely, jump ropes are getting very high-tech these days, and those who have a hard time keeping count can rest assured these new digital jump ropes will do it for them.

The ropeless JumpSnap is perfect for exercising indoors. As Dory mentioned, the digital jump rope has balls on each end that simulate the spinning rope and an LCD that tells you how many calories you've burned. Digital jumping ropes come in all colors and sizes, and include calorie counters, timers, alarms, and even talking buttons on the handles. They're still relatively cheap, and extremely useful, but if people want to get an update during their workout, they'll have to stop and look at the tiny displays on each handle.

Hopefully, Jacky Wu's concept design gets picked up by Nike or someone out there because her digital jump rope idea makes too much sense. You've probably seen those LED clocks that give the illusion of time being suspended in mid-air. Well, Jumplay is kind of like that, expect it creates an LED display right in front of you with each revolution so you can see how many calories you burn, the number of skipping cycles, and time. It's a great concept, but I wonder how feasible this is considering LEDs have to be embedded inside the rope.