Adidas has launched Adidas GMR, a smart insole for its football boots that connects the performance of the player wearing it in a real match to rewards inside the EA Sports FIFA Mobile game.

The insole uses Google’s Jacquard wearable tech. In Adidas’s own words: “Slip it into any boot and it connects your football effort to the game. Now when you improve, so does your EA Sports FIFA Mobile team. Breeze through challenges, unlock Skill Boosts, raise your OVR rating and own the bragging rights on the leaderboards.”

The GMR costs £29.95, for which you get two insoles, a Jacquard smart insole tag that goes in the shoe of your dominant foot, and a second, dummy tag for the other shoe. The wearer also needs a Jacquard-compatible handset – Apple devices with iOS 12.1 and later or Android with Marshmallow 6.0 (API LVL 23) and later – and the GNMR and EA Sports FIFA Mobile apps, both of which are free to download on the app stores.

According to the blurb on the GMR website, the smart insole tracks and rewards running, passing and shooting, though quite how it can assess the accuracy of a pass or shot is anyone’s guess.

An FAQ section on the GMR site says the Jacquard tag is equipped with a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a small processor capable of running on-device machine learning that can differentiate football-specific movements. Its able to measure the number of kicks, shot speed, run speed, and total distance run.