Peloton Guide

About this item: 

Peloton is upping its game for its strength-training classes with a mid-range hardware option. The Peloton Guide, a compact smart fitness product, uses a built-in camera and your TV to track movement and check your form in real-time as well as give you access to exclusive strength-specific programs.

Using the Peloton Guide:

• Setup

The whole Peloton Guide package is well designed and easy to put together. Simply place the camera on the magnetic stand, connect the power and HDMI cord, and you can begin to get setup.

There will be an initial update that will need to be downloaded and installed. With that and an additional 10-minute set-up of your profile, and adjusting the camera and mic, you should plan on the entire process taking around 20 minutes.

Once setup, the menus and UI are well designed, making it easy to sort through Peloton’s enormous library. Strength classes that are designed to be used with Peloton’s ‘Movement Tracker’ are all marked with a sweat drop.

• Self-Mode

The camera on the Peloton Guide is there to put you up on the television alongside the instructor. The goal is that you can more easily see, compare, and correct your form , Depending on the movement, this can occasionally be useful, although the same could be accomplished with a simple mirror.

• Voice commands

While the Peloton Guide comes with a remote, you can control a lot of what you need via voice commands. You can give commands like:

• Okay Peloton, pause the workout
• Okay Peloton, start the workout
• Okay Peltoton, rewind to the last set
• Okay Peloton, switch to side view

Sometimes Peloton instructors do not provide as much rest as I would like between strength sets. So in those cases, I appreciated the ability to pause and start the workout without having to grab the remote.

• Body activity

Another new feature that came with the Peloton Guide is your ‘Body Activity’ chart. This chart shows you the percentage of how much time you spend working each muscle group.

Well, at least it is supposed to. After testing it out, I am not sure it is working correctly, taking data from all workouts.

This is actually useful to help guide you toward workouts and muscle groups you may be ignoring. However, this could be equally harmful as  seems built around the false premise that all muscle groups should be worked equally.

• Exclusive content

In order to create more interest in the Peloton Guide, Peloton is making exclusive content for it. Most new strength programs, like the newly released ‘Floor Bootcamp Program, will be exclusive to the Guide for seven weeks. Other weekly programs built around the live schedule will be permanently exclusive.

Peloton Guide specs: