Peloton brings AI-monitored fitness to homes

US home fitness start-up Peloton sits at the crossroads financially but that hasn’t stopped it rolling out a new training system.

Peloton Guide monitors your strength training and recomemnds exercises for neglected muscle groups.

US home fitness start-up Peloton sits at the crossroads financially. It enjoyed a bonanza offering streamed fitness classes to customers on stationary bikes at home during Covid lockdowns. Now it is dealing with many of them returning to gyms.

While some will continue to revel in getting fit in their living rooms with Peloton, others will equally revel being back in public gyms and enjoying the sociability of exercising with their friends.

Some analysts see that issue as behind a massive drop in Peloton’s share price, from $US162 in January this year to $US92 on November 2 before a free fall this week to $US50. The company suffered a more than 30 per cent drop in its share value in one day.

Recent Peloton share price. Source: Google Finance

While Peloton deals with this disappointing situation, the company has proceeded with a rollout of a new Peloton concept that takes interactive fitness at home in a new direction.

It has released Peloton Guide, a camera system that you connect to your TV as you would a set-top box.

The guide not only brings Peloton classes to your big living room TV, the camera system uses artificial intelligence to analyse your movements and offer feedback on how you are performing compared to the trainer.

The original Peloton bikes focused mainly on fitness through cycling, however Peloton also focuses on other exercise types such as strength training. Peloton Guide taps into this.

Getting started with Peloton Guide is more affordable than with the bikes. You pay $750 for the camera system and Peloton’s monthly access fee of $16.99 which covers up to five users at home. (Peloton Bike + is $3695 or $86 per month.)

“Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen the interest in our strength content explode,” says Tom Cortese, Peloton’s co-founder and chief product officer. “We combined our world-class Instructors and class content with the best machine learning technology to create a whole new way to train.

“This is just the beginning for Peloton strength. Guide will keep getting smarter so it can grow stronger alongside our Members.”

Peloton says the AI in Guide identifies patterns in your movements and makes decisions to enhance the Peloton strength class experience. It says the Guide uses machine learning to help members track their movements and progress.

The Peloton Guide camera system

Members can use their own equipment, weights and accessories.

Peloton Guide includes a movement tracker which helps users complete demonstrated exercises and follow instructors for an entire class.

Smart camera technology allows members to compare their form to an instructor’s in real-time. They can choose how to make corrections and adjustments during class.

A body activity feature shows users which muscle groups they recently worked. Peloton will recommend classes focused on the muscle groups that need training.

Users can wake up Peloton Guide, then start, stop, rewind, or fast forward through a class using voice commands. However, this feature will not be available in Australia at launch in 2022, but Peloton says it will bring voice activation to other markets soon.

Peloton says it is conscious of privacy. Members can put Peloton Guide to sleep, slide the cover over the camera, and turn off the mic using a physical switch so that they share only what they want to share.

Peloton expects to update and enhance Peloton Guide by training the machine learning model on new movements and disciplines, and adding new Instructor-led training programs and classes.

It says the Peloton strength community has almost 250,000 members in unofficial groups and tags focused on strength. It claims an overall membership of more than 6.2 million.

Peloton Guide includes a Peloton Heart Rate Band which can be bought separately.