The world of connected home gym equipment is vast and expensive, but one little gadget that breaks the mold is the Peloton Guide. unlike Peloton Bike PlusAnd Peloton treador Tempo Studio, the guide won’t make you feel like you’re turning your living room into a gym, or take up a lot of space if you’re not blessed with space (welcome to my world). The Peloton Guide is Peloton’s Strength Showcase – designed to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help you reach your strength training goals. You can connect it to your TV, and the device uses machine learning and smart camera technology to provide a personal training experience, from the comfort of your living room.
But how does it compare to other products in Peloton’s repertoire, and is it worth its price tag and ongoing monthly subscription? To learn more, I installed the little box in my living room for three months, and used it for weekly strength classes. Read my full review in the Peloton Guide to learn more.
Peloton Guide review: Price and availability
Unlike the rest of the Peloton suite, a guide will likely cost no more than a month’s rent – it’s $295 / £275 to buy, then you’ll need a subscription to classes, which cost $24 / £24 per month. Things can get more expensive if you buy an exercise mat and dumbbells from Peloton, but since the dumbbells aren’t attached in any way, you can get by with a cheaper pair of The best adjustable dumbbells and use it.
Membership can be shared with five different members of your household, and if you already own a bike or treadmill, your all-inclusive membership covers Peloton Guide chapters.
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Peloton Handbook Review: Design and Setup
Peloton Guide is like a small webcam that will plug into your TV. The camera has a resolution of 12MP and can stream 4K video at up to 60fps. It didn’t look out of place set up in my living room, and it probably took me about five minutes to wire it all up (I’m not the most technical person), then about fifteen minutes to set it all up.
The guide uses machine learning and smart camera technology to track your movements and provide suggestions as you work out. You will be able to see your own photo on TV, along with the coaches, to compare your form and technique. For the guide to do this, you need to go through a few setup screens – the guide will ask you to raise your arms above your head and to the side, to make sure he’s holding you.
Once you’re set up, you can choose your class. The guide tells you which muscles you’ve worked—what Peloton calls “bodywork.” You can choose a class based on a body part, but after you’ve completed some classes, based on your body’s activity, the guide will suggest which exercises to do next, targeting different areas of the body and avoiding overtraining one muscle group.
There’s also an option to choose a category from the Rep Tracker series – this is Peloton’s newest feature, which counts every rep for you, giving you credit for every weight lifted. You can also program the weight you’ll use for light, medium, and heavy sets, and the manual will measure the total weight lifted, letting you see your progress over time.
Peloton Guide Review: Classes
As with all Peloton products, the guide’s magic lies in its categories, and there are a plethora to choose from. I loved how each exercise gave you an overview of the exercises involved, so there weren’t any unpleasant surprises and told you what weights you needed to grab before you started. Classes range from 10-45 minutes and have all the enthusiasm you’d expect from a peloton class, plus a great soundtrack.
Like all other Peloton classes, new guide-specific exercises are added every week, as well as a series of live classes. You can, of course, do non-manual drills on the manual, though there are no manual-specific features like rep tracking and motion tracking.
During the exercises, I appreciated the guide’s flexibility. I was impressed with how easy it was to adjust my view on the screen—I could easily switch between self-mode, and see my own form over the trainer while rowing and doing push-ups. When this became distracting, I could easily move to the mini-zone, where I saw myself in a smaller window to the left of the screen, above the heart rate monitor. (I was able to Use your Apple Watch as your heart rate monitor — here’s how to connect the two).
Another clever little feature was the ability to use voice commands to pause workouts—no more scribbling to put dumbbells down and pressing the remote when the doorbell goes off. I was able to pause a workout by saying, “Okay, peloton, pause your workout,” and you can find List of voice commands (Opens in a new tab) on the site.
Peloton Handbook Review: Performance
I will admit, I did not expect to like the guide. Having tested a number of other Peloton products, I kind of felt the manual was a bit redundant—all other products in the Peloton range have strength-training classes, as does the Peloton app, which lets you do strength classes from a phone or tablet. It didn’t take long for me to realize I was wrong. Closing the motion tracker (a little logo that changes color as you move through the reps) was a trigger, and the rep tracking feature in my second class was great.
Compared to the strength exercises I did using the rotating screen on the Peloton Bike+, I found that I worked harder to lock down the motion tracker or hit my desired number of reps. When I’m often guilty of giving up on a workout a few seconds early, the mentor has helped me keep going and working until the last few seconds.
Like many, I’ve always resisted the idea of having an exercise cam in my living room. In the manual, however, there is a privacy slider, which covers the camera when not in use. What’s more, according to Peloton, no video or photos of you working out are uploaded to the cloud. The data collected by the device is for analyzing exercise performance and making recommendations. It’s really only my dog that judges me when I’m working in my living room.
Peloton Handbook review: The verdict
I was surprised at how much I liked strength training with Peloton Guide. For beginners, or those just getting back into strength training, being able to see your form and correct your technique is very important, something you won’t get from a lot of strength training. The best workout apps In the market. This is really like having a personal trainer in your living room. That said, I wish the screen alerted me when I was arching my back or flaring my ribs — a visual graphic that your form was off would come in handy, especially when you’re lost in a workout.
I also appreciate the body activity tracker, which helps show how much you’re working on one muscle group. As a runner, I tend to overload my legs, and I loved how the guide recorded this and reminded me to focus on other areas. Giving your muscles time to recover is essential for growth and repair, so it’s a great perk.
I’d say, if you already have a bike or tread, you’re not going to get as much guide as Peloton-newbies, though. But if you’re looking to get stronger from your living room, the guide is a great staple, especially for design-conscious fitness fanatics who don’t want their home to feel like a gym.