[HN Gopher] Peloton cuts back on Apple Watch support
___________________________________________________________________
Peloton cuts back on Apple Watch support
Author : uptown
Score : 162 points
Date : 2021-04-15 12:25 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (connectthewatts.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (connectthewatts.com)
| [deleted]
| throwawaysea wrote:
| That is a very anti consumer move, especially considering many
| people bought their new bikes with expectations about integration
| with apple's gym kit.
| hastes wrote:
| Why doesn't Apple just buy Peloton and add it to the vast network
| of Apple products that they can slowly kill and release a better
| version like they did with Beats?
| sneak wrote:
| My theory is that Apple isn't that into low-differentiation
| devices that aren't directly related to their core businesses.
| Beats were on the forefront of wireless headphones, which ties
| nicely into iTunes/etc. While Apple is super into fitness now
| (because of the watch, as well as the Peloton-style recurring
| revenue subscription market) the Peloton stuff isn't really
| groundbreaking hardware: it's an unremarkable bike with an
| unremarkable display bolted on to it, with an unremarkable app
| that runs on it, and a remarkable marketing/astroturfing
| campaign to drive the wheel.
|
| The hardware brand itself isn't that valuable, IMO. Perhaps the
| subscription revenue is, but Apple doesn't need Peloton's
| undifferentiated bike or brand name to participate in that
| market, and has world-class marketers of their own.
|
| Apple probably won't make exercise hardware unless they can
| make exercise hardware vastly better than what is presently
| available. Peloton is not that.
| djrogers wrote:
| Apple bought Beats for their streaming service - the
| headphones were a nice side bonus.
| gbourne wrote:
| Wow! I just ordered the Bike+, coming May 22nd. A big reason was
| the Apple Watch integration. I might just get the bike (cheaper
| and can get in a week) or cancel the entire order.
| mdoms wrote:
| Do people know you can just go for a run or cycle. You don't even
| need to pay someone, just go and do it.
| quenix wrote:
| Not everyone is in a position where they can do that.
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| Where I live it rains every other day and there aren't any
| interesting places to cycle.
| hullo wrote:
| If true, an interesting move; failing to account for the
| possibility of the iPad dominating the tablet market essentially
| sunk Peloton President William Lynch's run at Barnes & Noble when
| they invested too heavily in the production of first party Nook
| tablets. Those Nook tablets were actually a great product, far
| superior to the Fire tablets Amazon was eventually able to muscle
| in to their own niche, but it didn't ultimately mean that much in
| the face of Apple's domination.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| I'm a dissatisfied apple watch owner. The battery is basically
| gone after a year and a half, and while some of the first party
| apps are cool, third party apps underperform with only a
| specter of the feature sets they have on other devices - likely
| due to constraints with the hardware and software. Syncing
| music is a absolute travesty taking 4+ hours to sync even a
| modest catalogue. The official debugging forums are themselves
| an 8th circle of hell.
|
| It does not feel like Apple cares enough about the watch
| relative to its other businesses. If they did they wouldn't
| have shipped a device that should probably be in beta.
|
| If I was a partner firm I would not invest significantly in the
| watch platform. Maybe in a 4+ years, but I really doubt it.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| I stream my music collection from the internet on my watch
| and it's instant. I don't know why you are trying to follow a
| pattern from 1995 and wondering why we don't do that anymore.
| nexuist wrote:
| If Apple didn't expect users to use this feature then they
| shouldn't have released it (or advertised it at WWDC no
| less) in the first place. It's like selling a manual
| transmission car with a broken clutch and then complaining
| that nobody uses clutches anymore, who cares if the clutch
| is broken?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| One of the selling points of the Apple Watch is being able
| to use it (though not own it since it needs an iPhone at
| some point) in isolation. Having to stream content isn't
| always an option or isn't the best option. I use mine on my
| runs, but it has no cellular data of its own so I
| downloaded music and audiobooks to it. Even if it did have
| cellular data, streaming the music would drain the battery
| even faster since I'd be using every capability: health
| stat monitoring, bluetooth, GPS, and cellular data.
| FpUser wrote:
| Not everyone is like you. I do not stream my music. My
| phone does not even have mobile data plan. I have hard
| copy. Since my phone has high capacity SD card all my music
| fits though. I just play it on random using foobar2000.
| zamfi wrote:
| > Not everyone is like you.
|
| Very true.
|
| > I do not stream my music. My phone does not even have
| mobile data plan. I have hard copy. Since my phone has
| high capacity SD card all my music fits though. I just
| play it on random using foobar2000.
|
| ...though sounds like probably more people are like
| birdyrooster than like you.
| hellomyguys wrote:
| A lot of snark for someone who's trying to use what many
| considered a core scenario of the non-cellular Apple
| Watch... listening to music without your phone. Even my
| iPod from 2003 synced music more reliably than an Apple
| Watch. It's definitely one of the most frustrating
| experience with an Apple product I've had.
| unixhero wrote:
| So glad I went agnostic and got the Technogym bike.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| I suspect readers here are more likely to be big Apple fans than
| big Peloton fans. The people I've met who own Pelotons love them
| SOOO much.
|
| I believe they'd buy a Peloton fitness tracker / smartwatch. I
| believe it's the brand they value most even over Apple. People
| who value fitness (and their Pelotons) don't overlap highly with
| the people who value whatever it is Apple is good at (hardware?
| Idk, it's not ux for sure)
| varispeed wrote:
| GDPR mandates data portability so that users can move their data
| easily from one system to another. So is this even legal?
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| yes
| londons_explore wrote:
| Apple watch seems to have declined in use... I can see why
| companies don't want to put too much effort into supporting it.
| voisin wrote:
| /s I assume?
| Disruptive_Dave wrote:
| I took it seriously at first. Anecdotally, I see them being
| worn much less by my peers than 2-3 years ago. Cool/newness
| factor died, IMO. Then I looked at stats:
|
| > Apple shipped 7.6 million smartwatches worldwide in the
| first quarter of 2020, according to recent data from Strategy
| Analytics, an increase of 23% compared to 6.2 million in the
| first quarter of 2019. As such, Apple now claims 55% of the
| smartwatch market, representing a slight increase from the
| 54% it controlled in the same period one year ago, according
| to the research firm. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-watch-sales-
| numbers-st...
|
| Also: https://www.statista.com/chart/15035/worldwide-
| smartwatch-sh...
| Ensorceled wrote:
| While the coolness factor has gone down (anecdotally, I've
| gone back to wearing a nice watch when out on date or
| something; or I would if going out was still a thing)
| people are still using the Apple watch for everything else.
|
| I've had both a Polar and Garmin watch and neither were
| close to my Apple 3 for GPS accuracy or heart rate. My wife
| has a 2020 Garmin and we stand around waiting for her watch
| to get all of it's "bars"
| oldprogrammer2 wrote:
| I traded out my Apple Watch for the Garmin Forerunner 245
| (2019), and couldn't be happier. The newer Apple Watches
| may have improved on these since I had an Apple Watch 3.
|
| * The 245 locks GPS really, really fast. I never have to
| wait for it. Much, much faster than my older 630. The
| Apple Watch doesn't even tell you if it has locked a
| signal. I think it would lock fast if I had my phone with
| me, since it would use the phone's GPS to save watch
| battery, but I think it would be confused if I left my
| phone in the house while stepping out the front door for
| a run.
|
| * The 245 has physical buttons that reliably work with
| sweaty fingers in the summer and with gloves in the
| winter. So many times I couldn't stop a workout on the
| Apple Watch because of the swipe needed.
|
| * Display is always on, no need to raise my arm directly
| in front of my face to turn it on. Too many times I had
| to raise or twist my arm multiple times to see my pace
| with Apple.
| kingosticks wrote:
| The Apple Watch battery life whilst using GPS is
| something like 5 or 6 hours, right? I don't know about a
| 245 but my Garmin watch does double that normally, and
| over a day in the less accurate ultratrac mode. And yes,
| I have required more than 5 hours on a few occasions. 5
| hours is probably enough for most people most of the time
| but it's lacking compared to what a real sports watch can
| do and I personally wouldn't pay top money for Apple's
| half-arsed version.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Oh man, yeah, the sweat thing is painful. I don't know
| why they can't have the buttons work in "water mode". I
| sweat a lot in the summer and run in the rain ...
| mttjj wrote:
| > Apple Watch seems to have declined in use...
|
| Source please.
| jiofih wrote:
| Yeah, sales declined massively from 6 to only 5.2 million units
| last quarter. An estimated 100m active users. Dead in the
| water!
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Oh man, only 5% grow? That's the death knell.
| hparadiz wrote:
| I run a system that syncs with all the fitness trackers.
| Apple watch devices present in our system just keep
| growing.
| diamondhandle wrote:
| I am guessing you mean the popularity of Apple Watch as a
| developer platform, which is totally correct. In fact, it might
| be the first platform where developers said "sorry Apple, we
| aren't interested in making you more money."
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I think the developers actually said "people keep either not
| installing or uninstalling watch apps that don't make sense
| to be on a watch so there is no point"
|
| My watch only has a few apps outside of fitness and alerting,
| everything else gets deleted. I found Audible and podcasting
| apps useful.
| f6v wrote:
| Developers always want to "build relationships with Apple" by
| implementing the silliest ports of their existing apps for
| new devices: Apple Watch, Apple TV.
| hparadiz wrote:
| Most development around the apple watch caters to using the
| data somehow rather than actively running code on the watch.
| Even if all you're doing is number crunching you're
| ultimately creating demand for the device.
|
| I don't typically see many good use cases for running your
| own apps on the watch but there's many medical/fitness
| applications for the data itself.
| snapetom wrote:
| Speaking as a Day 1 Apple Watch owner, not as a watchOS
| developer.
|
| I think the first generation of Apple Watches were woefully
| underpowered for what they pitched as a development platform.
| The resources were very limited. Developers had to nail
| optimizations, and that was a shock in today's world where
| too many developers just npm install or pip3 install their
| problems away. It's very telling that early on, despite
| having a ton of apps, the fastest, most stable ones were the
| included ones by Apple and Google Maps.
|
| The result were a ton of slow, crashy apps with poor
| connection reliability. Users, myself included, got pissed,
| blamed the apps, and developers just said this wasn't worth
| it.
| zihotki wrote:
| It became less trendy in the news but the user base is
| consistently growing (source -
| https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/11/there-are-more-than-100-milli...
| ).
| jb775 wrote:
| Sounds like Apple is trying to leech off the success of any
| company making money off Apple product owners.
| yalogin wrote:
| I don't see how Peloton is going to win this in the long run.
| Strategically a bad move IMO. May be because I still see Peloton
| as more closer to a fad than something sustainable. They did well
| to make bank at the right time and go public. However its their
| game to lose. A competitor will do a solid integration with the
| Apple watch and get promoted in the Apple Store and the site and
| it will automatically boost their credibility among the same
| people that buy Pelotons. It will slowly eat away at their base.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Imo Peloton has more to worry about with Oculus Quest 2 and the
| upcoming generation of VR
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| I can't imagine the amount of sweat that comes off my head
| during a Peloton session being comfortable or safe for the
| Oculus.
| chaostheory wrote:
| That's an over exaggeration. It's an issue, but it's also
| safe and comfortable enough. Like with riding a stationary,
| I just use a towel from time to time. There are other
| accessories that help too. You should try it before forming
| such a strong opinion.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| You sound like someone who may be in better shape and /
| or doesn't sweat a lot.
|
| You definitely wouldn't want to use an exercise bike
| after me if you saw what it looked like when I was done,
| before I wiped it down.
| clpm4j wrote:
| I could very easily be mistaken for having jumped into a
| lake after I get off the exercise bike. Thoroughly
| drenched.
| djstein wrote:
| can you provide your thoughts on this?
| chaostheory wrote:
| I workout with VR daily 1-2 hours. Most of the time it
| doesn't even feel like heavy cardio because all I'm doing
| is playing games dodging bullets and swinging swords. There
| are even VR games for stationary bikes
| (https://virzoom.com/ & https://www.holodia.com).
|
| VR is more accessible, more flexible, offers a lot more
| variety, all for a much lower price than Peloton and other
| similar offerings.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| As an owner of both, I can't agree.
| FpUser wrote:
| Not Peloton but I have smart bike trainer and familiar with
| related software (zwift, RGT, tacx etc). My experience:
| using VR set the way they make them now is extremely
| uncomfortable on a bike trainer. And yes it will drown
| headset in sweat and kill it in no time.
| fuzzylightbulb wrote:
| Agreed. There is no way something like this takes off in
| this segment if it involves something on a rider's face
| bulkier than a pair of sunglasses. Most people running
| Zwift in 2021 are doing it on relatively underpowered
| platforms like appleTV and ipad, so we're no where close
| to a situation where VR would even be worth the
| development effort for these companies.
| chaostheory wrote:
| > And yes it will drown headset in sweat and kill it in
| no time.
|
| Is this from personal experience or just conjecture?
| Because this is not common problem. Also this is what
| towels are for. You can also have interchangeable padding
| to either be more absorbent of sweat or less depending
| your preferences.
| kingosticks wrote:
| Are you saying that sweating prefusably on an indoor
| cycling trainer is not a common problem? I must be
| misunderstanding.
|
| I'd need to have a couple of these absorbant
| interchangable sweat pads for an hours workout if I
| wanted this thing to have any chance of staying in place.
| And cleaning it afterwards would be a must, even so it
| sounds absolutely grim after a few uses. Plus they are
| pretty uncomfortable (my experience). I suppose it might
| be tolerable if I was just lightly spinning through a
| magical VR world enjoying the views. But I'd rather be
| using regular Zwift and getting fit.
| chaostheory wrote:
| >Are you saying that sweating prefusably on an indoor
| cycling trainer is not a common problem? I must be
| misunderstanding.
|
| No, I'm saying that lots of sweat will not break a VR
| system. Personally, I just use a towel on my neck and
| it's more than good enough VR workouts, but everyone is
| different
| madeofpalk wrote:
| You sweat a lot during exercise. It's literally dripping
| off my face throughout the exercise. There's no "grabbing
| a towel to wipe if off" while I'm wearing the headset.
| The headset will absorb the sweat.
| chaostheory wrote:
| There's an easy solution for this:
|
| 1. Momentarily take off your VR headset.
|
| 2. Wipe your sweat using the towel on your neck
|
| 3. Put your VR HMD back on and continue working out
|
| 4. Repeat when sweat becomes an issue again in 30 minutes
|
| > The headset will absorb the sweat.
|
| Not if you add a silicone liner on top of the padding of
| your VR headset.
|
| It seems like most of the pundits critical of using VR
| for working out haven't even tried it themselves
| FpUser wrote:
| >"4. Repeat when sweat becomes an issue again in 30
| minutes"
|
| I my case the issue resurfaces in a minute or so.
|
| >"Not if you add a silicone liner on top of the padding
| of your VR headset"
|
| Actually in my case liner or not any area of my body that
| is covered sweats.
|
| Anyways your advises sound like I have to bend backwards
| to make use of that VR. I'll wait till VR does that
| instead. If not fine with me. I have other things to do.
|
| >"It seems like most of the pundits critical of using VR
| for working out haven't even tried it themselves"
|
| You are making unfounded assumptions here.
| FpUser wrote:
| Yes it is a personal experience. I might change my
| opinion when / if VR headsets will look like a regular
| glasses so my fan can move the air properly.
|
| As for towels - do you ride while periodically removing
| your headset and wiping your face? I can't imagine myself
| doing it. I have giant industrial fan that takes care of
| a perspiration and which is totally useless if most of my
| face is covered with that blob of VR set.
| chaostheory wrote:
| why not?
| reducesuffering wrote:
| You can already see the start of this with Beat Saber.
| Imagine a Peloton, but instead of the 2D workout video,
| you're in immersive 3D VR cycling trails. Though Peloton
| still has like 7 years leeway, they won't have the VR chops
| to make it happen and will probably be acquired.
|
| Some commenters think it won't be the case due to sweat? Good
| luck betting $100B market cap being stopped by the lack of
| innovation in preventing sweat issues.
| chaostheory wrote:
| > Imagine a Peloton, but instead of the 2D workout video,
| you're in immersive 3D VR cycling trails.
|
| https://virzoom.com/
|
| https://www.holodia.com
| reducesuffering wrote:
| They are the AltaVista to future Google
| paulpan wrote:
| Agreed, it's like bringing a knife to a gun fight.
|
| The reality is that Peloton doesn't really have an option,
| since the competitive advantage is health/exercise data.
| Allowing Apple continued access to user health data via Apple
| Watch means Peloton devices will be increasingly viewed as
| commodities - it's just an exercise bike. Also Apple probably
| will add spin classes to its Fitness+ service soon, which puts
| them at a direct competition with Peloton's core revenue
| stream.
|
| So you either try to stem the bleeding early, or fade slowly
| into irrelevance as your products become commoditized. Users
| may love their Pelotons but I'm surmise that they prefer their
| Apple devices more. It's like users don't care much for their
| mobile carriers as long as their iPhones are compatible on
| those carrier networks.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Peloton told The Verge Apple told them to remove it
|
| > The spokesperson also said: "Peloton is committed to bringing
| the GymKit integration to all workouts and disciplines within
| Apple's terms of service," seemingly suggesting bootcamp
| workouts didn't fall under those terms.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/15/22385515/peloton-bike-plu...
|
| I don't understand why the other fitness types ran afoul of the
| rules... Maybe there wasn't a strict 1-to-1 mapping of activity
| types which Apple didn't like?
| fudged71 wrote:
| It threatens the Apple ecosystem so this is Apple building a
| moat
| jxramos wrote:
| am I understanding this right, that Peloton is making
| fitness apps instead of using Apple's own fitness app?
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| You should also consider that Apple might also be moving
| into the fad-space that Peloton currently exists in.
|
| As in, Apple is extending their moat to eliminate Pelton
| as a competitor.
| [deleted]
| djrogers wrote:
| Ehhh, they didn't really say that - if they were told
| directly to remove that ability, one would expect them to
| come out and say so directly, and not make a wishy-washy
| statement like the above. Anything that 'seemingly suggests'
| something can be assumed to have been crafted specifically to
| suggest it while not telling the full truth.
| nradov wrote:
| Does Apple Watch integration even matter? There's a big HD
| screen right there on the bike.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| I would say it's the singular most important aspect for a
| large number of riders. My wife is absolutely obsessed with
| hitting her numbers everyday. This is all done through the
| apple watch and Peloton.
| stouset wrote:
| The Peloton doesn't track heart rate without an external
| Bluetooth monitor. The Apple Watch is one such monitor.
| pwthornton wrote:
| The Apple Watch is a pretty good heart rate monitor, and it
| brings your Peloton data into the Fitness and Health apps. If
| you wear and Apple Watch while cycling, your heart rate shows
| up on the Peloton, and it breaks it down by heart rate zones.
|
| I use an Apple Watch with my Bike+. I only do cycling
| workouts, so I never noticed this limitation, but it does
| seem odd.
|
| It's possible that Apple didn't feel some of the data
| tracking for other activities was particularly accurate.
| Apple spends millions to test people doing different workouts
| and to measure the caloric spend, and maybe Apple only
| thought the data was accurate for cycling. Bootcamp classes
| in particular are a really nebulous concept.
|
| Apple has workout modes for all different kinds of exercise
| built into the Apple Watch based on data they have gathered
| from large samples of test subjects. I wouldn't be surprised
| if Apple felt the cycling data was accurate, and the other
| stuff that Peloton was doing a lot less so (and a lot less
| accurate than popping into a workout mode directly on your
| Watch).
| aaomidi wrote:
| Yes. All of my workout related data is on it.
|
| I really don't care what the tool I'm using has as long as it
| integrates with the Apple Fitness system.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| The ability it keep track of all your workouts in the same
| place is really nice.
| rblatz wrote:
| A key feature of the Apple Watch is its Apple Health app,
| which tracks more than just your time on a bike. Peloton
| locking a portion of your data away from you is going to make
| it a lot more tempting to switch when you find a bike that
| integrates with all your other data.
| egwor wrote:
| Maybe it could sync via your phone? That's how I sync
| pretty much everything else I use (garmin and polar)
| brown9-2 wrote:
| You can (and many Peleton members do) just start a workout
| on the Apple Watch's Workout app whenever you take a class.
| It is more or less tracking the same thing, except your
| workout will show as "Indoor Cycle" or whatever instead of
| "Alex's 20 minute Hip Hop Ride".
| maccard wrote:
| You can also "just" follow a youtube spinning class on a
| turbo trainer. The point of smart fitness devices is so
| that I don't have to put my diet, workout and schedule
| into 3 different tools and merge them myself.
| pwthornton wrote:
| The one thing you lose is heart rate tracking on the
| Peloton. With GymKit, your Apple Watch tracks your heart
| rate as you work out and displays it on the screen, along
| with which heart rate zone you are in (1-5). It shows
| what percentage of your max heart rate you are using at
| any one time and gives you a heart rate graph readout
| when you are done.
|
| You could just use a third party heart rate tracker to
| accomplish this, but that's one more thing to put on.
| tannedNerd wrote:
| You could also use an app like BlueHeart to do it. It
| fakes a BLE HR tracker on your phone while pulling the
| data form your watch, so that you still get your HR data
| on the big screen.
| ericlewis wrote:
| wait, my peloton came with a heart tracker that
| integrates directly with the peloton. its chest strap
| model which is supposedly even more accurate.
| pwthornton wrote:
| They sell different packages and some come with a chest
| strap. I got just the bike and shoes. I already use an
| Apple Watch to track my heart rate for everything else,
| and it's been rated as accurate.
|
| But if you got a chest strap with it, that would 100% do
| the same thing.
|
| I like having one device that tracks my heart rate
| through all of the activities I do (including sleeping).
| nradov wrote:
| So the issue then is with Apple Health integration, not
| with the Apple Watch specifically. Apple Health also runs
| on other iOS devices and has a back end API.
| dhagz wrote:
| There are some neat things you can do with the Watch
| specifically - there's NFC stuff you can do to
| automatically start a specific workout type when the user
| taps their watch on a piece of equipment, for instance.
| clpm4j wrote:
| I think there are two (or more) segments of Peloton riders.
| The data geeks who want to track all of their workouts and
| metrics, and the casual rider who just wants a convenient
| way to get some solid exercise without leaving the house. I
| fall into the casual segment - I ride my Peloton 1-2 times
| per day, and I don't care about any of my stats, but I love
| the workout and I love the Peloton instructors. Unless
| another platform somehow convinces my favorite instructors
| to leave Peloton then I'm sticking around.
|
| *edit: I also own an Apple watch, but I only use it for
| tracking # of minutes while running outside. And for
| telling the time.
| airstrike wrote:
| If 1-2 times per day is "casual", one can only conclude
| the hardcore users sleep on the damn thing!
| clpm4j wrote:
| Well I do love fitness! Definitely more than the average
| person. I just don't care for the metrics.
| FpUser wrote:
| Same here. I do a lot of bike riding, hiking, canoeing
| and open water swimming. All this stuff keeps me in very
| good shape. I look fine I feel even better so do not care
| bout them metrics.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Across all of their active subscribers, the average is 21
| workouts per month [0]. So that user is technically
| above-average, but I'm curious what the actual
| distribution looks like, if it's like a bell curve or
| more "camel shaped" with a mixture of infrequent users
| and very frequent users at opposite ends.
|
| I don't own one, but from people I know that do own one,
| the brand seems very good at turning their customers into
| that sort of ideal fanatical user. [1]
|
| [0] Q2 2021 shareholder letter p2
|
| https://investor.onepeloton.com/static-
| files/dd43f8b8-acc9-4...
|
| [1] I don't mean fanatical as an insult to the users :P
| More power to you if it makes you work out. But for a
| company a 'multiple times per day' user who is probably
| also telling friends about the product is the dream.
| krustyburger wrote:
| It's worth noting that many riders add 5-minute warm-up,
| cool-down and stretching sessions to their main rides.
| Peloton counts all of these as separate rides and
| frequently recommends them. Frustratingly, they also
| count toward the user ride milestones that take up so
| much instructor focus during rides (100 rides, 500 rides
| etc.).
|
| It all seems intentionally designed to juice their
| engagement data.
| fuzzylightbulb wrote:
| This. As a peloton user, I actually wish there was a way
| to set the system to "ignore" those rides for the
| purposes of ride count, stats, Strava upload, etc. The
| warm ups/cool downs are important things to do but it
| makes for a ton of digital clutter. If I ride 5 days a
| week that is 15 "activities" minimum.
|
| That being said, most of the more casual users are
| probably not doing this. I know that most of the people I
| know/follow on there are doing one or two activities per
| day of use, and it seems they are a mix of discipline, so
| like a 20 min ride and then a stretching class or
| weights.
| gumby wrote:
| > if it's like a bell curve or more "camel shaped"
|
| By the way this is generally referred to as a "saddle
| curve".
|
| But I like the imagery: it would be lovely if "bell" and
| "saddle" curves were referred to as "dromedary" and
| "bactrian" curves!
| alostpuppy wrote:
| The thing is incredibly "sticky". People def use the
| thing.
| fossuser wrote:
| The Apple Watch health stuff kind of sucks (the health app
| itself that can take in/track other data is okay). It
| sounds like Apple is just blocking Peloton from their
| fitness competitor bootcamp stuff, but Peloton can still
| integrate data in Health.
|
| I have a Peloton and Apple Watch, I've historically had a
| FitBit.
|
| The FitBit would recognize when you were on a run and auto
| record everything - the Apple Watch can't do this, about
| 20% of the time it'll ask if you're on a run and makes you
| confirm that you are (which is easy to miss).
|
| The Fitness app has a bug that suggests nobody even looks
| at it. If your speed is increasing (you're running faster)
| and so your mileage time is going down (takes you fewer
| minutes to run a mile) and that's trending down as a result
| the App says "oh no you're trending downward" - but
| obviously in that case getting faster and getting your
| mileage time down is a good thing.
|
| The Peloton stuff is solid and you can still share it to
| the health app - real time tracking via the watch doesn't
| matter that much. Anyone who does actual cycling will have
| a garmin computer or something anyway.
|
| The Apple Watch fitness stuff is maybe okay for people that
| don't exercise and just want some walking tracking
| motivation - it's pretty bad for everything else.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Peloton is certainly a fad, but Bowflex still exists. The idea
| that Peloton isn't just an exercise bike with an at home gym
| subscription, is is highly suspect.
| MisterPea wrote:
| Peloton also has a more of a cult following. A better
| comparison is probably cross-fit
| jb775 wrote:
| Building your products around an Apple product is like building
| a product around a parasite.
|
| They'll wait until you depend on Apple hardware, or until they
| trap your users within their own user-base ecosystem, then will
| casually demand you pay the piper.
| valuearb wrote:
| It's a "parasite" that pays over $50 Billion a year to people
| who build around their products.
| pwthornton wrote:
| Peloton should definitely try to work with the Apple Watch as
| best as possible. We are hearing mixed reports on if Apple or
| Peloton wanted Peloton to pull back on some of the integration.
|
| I recently got a Peloton Bike+, and it is one of the best
| mixtures of physical and software product I have ever seen. By
| far the best for anything exercise related.
|
| I had been riding on a basic bike with Apple Fitness+, and I
| enjoyed it a lot, but the Peloton is next level. For cycling
| classes, it blows everything out of the water. It doesn't just
| have the standard music and cycling stuff that Soul Cycle and
| others made popular in person, it has all of the Power Zone
| classes that are based on improving your specific fitness
| levels with data and classes tailored to you.
| matsemann wrote:
| Have you tried actual cycling products when you say it blows
| everything out of the water? Like Zwift, Trainerroad,
| Sufferfest, Rouvy etc? For instance Trainerroad is miles
| ahead when it comes to structured training with progress.
| Hates_ wrote:
| My Peloton is one of the best fitness purchases I've made
| in years. And thats after a couple of years on a Wahoo
| Kickr Snap and a year on a Wahoo Kickr Core, mostly using
| Zwift with a bit of TrainerRoad mixed in. The classes on
| Peloton are just so much fun, motivating and uplifting.
| pwthornton wrote:
| I should specify hardware and software combined.
|
| Zwift, Trainerroad, etc. are good for people looking to
| train to become better cyclists. You do largely need to
| bring your own setup, which can often be complicated
| (although you can then get a setup that mirrors your
| outdoor work).
|
| I am referring to fitness training, not training to become
| a better road cyclist, and I suspect most people that use a
| Peloton or go to Soul Cycle have no intention of training
| to become better at road cycling. They are doing so to
| become fitter, and Peloton's training is specifically aimed
| at improving various areas of fitness. So when I refer to
| training, I am referring to training to improve specific
| fitness goals and not training to become a better cyclist.
|
| I have no interest in becoming a good cyclist, but I am
| looking to improve my fitness across a variety of metrics.
| I also weight train and do other stuff, but I have found
| the Peloton approach to indoor cycling well suited to
| helping meet specific fitness goals.
| kayoone wrote:
| I love road cycling but also weight lifting and other
| stuff. You can perfectly use Zwift just as an indoor
| fitness trainer. Yes you need a trainer and a used bike
| that is comfortable for you but a peloton isn't cheap
| either and I can stow away my Zwift setup except for the
| bike of course.
| fuzzylightbulb wrote:
| Peloton owner. Long time Zwift user. Have spent a little
| time each with TR and Sufferfest. Peloton is the most
| polished experience by an incredibly wide margin. Most
| people aren't so much looking to be incredible cyclists as
| they are just wanting to be in shape, and the combination
| of premium hardware, dead simple interface, and the ever-
| expanding library of classes across a variety of
| disciplines is far beyond what most people would ever
| want/need. I do wish that there were better structured
| training options within Peloton beyond the intro to power
| zones program, but I think they could add that fairly
| easily if there was demand.
|
| When I was training for races I would want to be primarily
| on my bike, but for just offsetting my Oreo addiction the
| Peloton is perfect.
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| I find the video amusing as the dude calls it the "annoying toy
| tactic". aka when parents conveniently "lose" a very annoying toy
| a child might have.
|
| However the correct term for this, I think, is "bait and switch".
| When you buy a tech product and it has a feature that is
| arbitrarily taken away from you. Frankly it should be illegal.
| Lots of companies have done this and will continue to do it until
| they can't.
| Qahlel wrote:
| Apple might have changed terms or told them to change something
| and that might be why.
| dhimes wrote:
| Or, they may be watching what Apple is doing and seeing that
| working off of the Apple platform puts them at risk somehow.
| IOW, because of Apple's reputation they may be looking to hedge
| against a possible change in terms.
|
| That may have influenced their decision to market their own
| watch as well.
| badwolf wrote:
| Or as the article suggests, Peloton is going to make and push
| their own smartwatch
| Johnny555 wrote:
| The proprietary nature of Peloton is a big reason why I didn't
| get one -- if you want any fitness tracking at all, you have to
| pay their $39/month fee. Plus I didn't want a bike with a big
| expensive display that's going to need to be replaced some day.
|
| I went with Keiser, which I pair with my Garmin watch for
| tracking.
|
| But Peloton still gets some money from me since I use their
| $14.99/mo (edit: the app is $12.99/mo, with tax I pay $14.30)
| standalone app for workouts.
| _jal wrote:
| Yep. No @#$@ing way am I going to pay a rental fee on a device
| I just bought, whether or not it has a TV built in.
| timdorr wrote:
| It's not a rental fee for the device, it's a subscription fee
| for the content that can be used on it. You can still use the
| bike as a plain exercise bike without a subscription.
|
| It's the same thing as buying a Roku and paying for Netflix.
| _jal wrote:
| I understand it is possible to use it like an overpriced
| exerbike with a useless monitor glued on.
|
| Thank you for the overly-literal semantic quibbling, it
| wouldn't be HN without it.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Although Peloton charge $40/mo if you bought their bike, or
| $15/mo if you use your own bike. $15/mo is in line with
| competitor prices for similar services. So it really seems
| like the extra $25/mo is "vendor lock-in" premium.
|
| There are features gated to the Peloton bike which gives a
| downside to the bring-your-own-bike route and muddies the
| waters somewhat. If the Peloton app supported ERG mode with
| full interactivity, I'd probably be willing to pay $25/mo,
| because it is a really high quality service.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _It 's the same thing as buying a Roku and paying for
| Netflix._
|
| Seems more like buying an expensive Netflix player, which
| will only show photo albums from an SD card unless you
| subscribe to Netflix.
|
| Or, buying a Peloton bike is more like buying a Roku to
| watch movies and then having to pay for a Roku subscription
| or it's useless because it doesn't work with Netflix.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| That is: death by a thousand cu... er, subscriptions
| RankingMember wrote:
| I do the same, but with an Echelon. There's really no
| comparison to the Peloton class experience imo- The Echelon
| class production quality is not good and the music leaves a lot
| to be desired.
| bighitbiker3 wrote:
| Yep in the exact same boat as you. Went with the M3i and pair
| it with the Peloton standalone app for classes. Have been
| meaning to try out Zwift but I've started running more due to
| the nicer weather. Eventually!
|
| Many of my friends went with the Peloton and swear by it. If
| you're fine being platform-locked for $39/mo it's a great
| option. The bike is quality, the classes are amazing, and the
| peer competition is motivating. All that wasn't for me though.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| The problem for me wasn't just the $39/mo, that's still
| mildly affordable, but figured if Peloton raises the fee,
| there's not much I can do about it since I'm locked in.
|
| Since I use the standalone Peloton app with my Keiser, if
| Peloton raises their fee I can easily switch to another one.
| [deleted]
| fuzzylightbulb wrote:
| I would venture to guess that most people buying a Peloton are
| not doing it for the data tracking. They are buying one because
| it is a really nice spin bike paired with daily live classes
| across multiple sports that then go into a massive content
| library that you can stream on demand. You certainly pay a
| premium for the whole thing to be tightly integrated ("it just
| works") but that is clearly worth it to a huge number of
| people.
|
| Anyone that already likes spin classes wants one of these
| bikes. And compared to what you would pay to go to a live class
| at a spin studio the $40 a month is a drop in the bucket. The
| fact that both you and your spouse or roommate can use the same
| subscription with separate accounts further stacks the
| financials in Peloton's direction. The fact that you can hop on
| the thing whenever you want from the comfort of your home is
| another huge plus.
|
| The bike won't last forever, but its not like the screen is
| going to "age out" at any point. And if the whole thing somehow
| completely dies in 3 years it will still have been a fine
| investment relative to the alternatives. Certainly you can ride
| for cheaper but nothing else comes close to the experience for
| the money.
| dkrich wrote:
| I got a Keiser, too, mostly because the Peloton wasn't
| available for like 10 months when I wanted one, but also for
| the money the Keiser is a much higher quality bike plus you
| have the flexibility of using Zwift or other apps. I currently
| use the Peloton app for 100% of my rides, but I hate the idea
| of spending $2500+ for a piece of equipment that I'll probably
| never replace and being locked into their ecosystem and not
| having any choice (it's not an iPhone that I'm going to replace
| every two years because it has better and better features- it's
| a stationary bike). I suspect they recognize that the TAM for
| bikes is pretty well saturated and need to look elsewhere for
| opportunities.
|
| I have a Fitbit because all I wanted was a fitness tracker, not
| a fully functional smart watch, but the ability to use it for
| my workouts is important. But it does a decent enough job of
| tracking effort just based on heart rate without knowing every
| detail of resistance, cadence, etc.
| valuearb wrote:
| Keisers don't have screens do they?
| bombcar wrote:
| Isn't Apple now directly competing with Peloton with Apple
| Fitness?
| thrav wrote:
| It feels more likely that Apple disallowed their other classes
| (since Apple has their own offering) than Peloton decided to
| disable some tracking, but not all tracking.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Is Apple Computers competing with Peleton bikes or their
| treadmills?
|
| Everyone is trying to be megacorp these days.
| f6v wrote:
| > Everyone is trying to be megacorp these days.
|
| Been playing Rome: Total War for the past few days. It going
| me thinking that empire just can't stop expanding. You
| conquer one province, thinking that barbarian neighbor won't
| be a problem ever again. But then you realize your empire now
| borders some other barbarians who start harassing you. And
| then you need more troops to keep the new citizens from
| rioting. Which requires money, which means the drums of war
| are at it again...
| mcculley wrote:
| There are less violent forces behind expansion.
| Shareholders prefer to invest in companies that are
| growing. Employees want to work in organizations where they
| can be promoted.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _empire just can't stop expanding_
|
| You're identifying a deficiency of imperial systems. They
| were one of the only ways to get growth in our close to
| zero sum past. In a world with a growing global economy, on
| the other hand, warring and imperialism are self-defeating
| long run strategies.
| f6v wrote:
| > In a world with a growing global economy
|
| That's assuming there's no end to the growth. But the
| resources here on earth are limited.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _resources here on earth are limited_
|
| One, there is more in the universe than this earth. And
| two, the resource intensity of GDP growth is falling. (A
| new iPhone is more capable than its predecessors without
| requiring comparatively more resources. And a web comic
| can create millions in value with comparatively little
| burn.)
| vinceguidry wrote:
| No, they work just as well as they always do. It's just
| easier to run in to a bigger, badder imperium.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they work just as well as they always do_
|
| Objectively, no. They don't. You can't capture the
| intangible capital of a country through invasion. The
| greater the ratio of intangible capital (skills, trust,
| institutions, _et cetera_ ) to tangible capital, the less
| effective classical empires become.
|
| Resource-rich countries, on the other hand, are still
| subject to imperial dynamics.
| vinceguidry wrote:
| It happened last century, when the Communists kicked the
| Nationalists out of mainland China.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _when the Communists kicked the Nationalists out of
| mainland China_
|
| That's revolution, not imperialism.
| vinceguidry wrote:
| What's the difference? They invaded, took over, and
| kicked out the old leaders. It was a war. With territory
| and everything.
| billbrown wrote:
| For a more business-oriented perspective, Eric Weinstein's
| idea of Embedded Growth Obligations[1] is apt.
|
| [1] https://theportal.wiki/wiki/Embedded_Growth_Obligations
| atestu wrote:
| Apple stopped being "Apple Computers" 14 years ago. They're
| explicitly a mobile devices company, and fitness fits
| perfectly into that mission I think.
| usrusr wrote:
| Absolutely. But it doesn't look like they are any good at
| it, considering how the Apple Watch totally didn't eat the
| market of incumbents like Garmin at all (Garmin is almost
| drowning in money now that the Apple Watch has made it
| socially acceptable to spend high sums on wrist gadgets).
| The Apple watch excels in engineering, but the software
| environment is so focused on mainstream appeal that almost
| everybody has _some_ niche interest that isn 't served
| there at all. And those niches are tight: one might think
| for example that Garmin and Peloton are direct competitors
| in the field of home indoor workout bikes (Garmin via the
| Tacx Neo Bike) but in reality those serve very different
| markets with almost zero overlap. Apple misses all those
| niches because they are not only committed to ignoring
| niche features but also exert too much control on the walls
| of their garden that third parties won't rely on them as a
| platform.
| djrogers wrote:
| > considering how the Apple Watch totally didn't eat the
| market of incumbents like Garmin at all
|
| Someone forgot to tell everyone buying a smartwatch that
| - Apple has a 50% marketshare in the market, whereas
| Garmin is around 7%.
|
| [1] https://www.t4.ai/industry/smartwatch-market-share
| Ensorceled wrote:
| That was my point: both of these companies have expanded
| well beyond their initial purpose and now overlap. If you
| look at their origins, there is no overlap at all.
| semanticHurt wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_fixedness
|
| Has CPU, memory, storage, and is user programmable.
|
| Smells like a computer to me.
|
| The first "computers" were people. A pedant might say the
| entire industry moved on from "computers".
| madeofpalk wrote:
| No, Apple Computers legally changed their company name to
| just Apple many years ago after they introduced the
| iPhone.
| semanticHurt wrote:
| A legal name change means they stopped making "computers"
| from an engineers perspective?
|
| Banal political filings have little bearing on what makes
| a computer.
| mmmmmbop wrote:
| No one claimed Apple stopped making computers, so you're
| attacking a straw man here. All that was pointed out is
| that there is no Apple Computer (note the capitalization)
| company anymore, as it was renamed to Apple Inc. in 2007.
| semanticHurt wrote:
| What's the difference between a computer and a "mobile
| device"?
|
| OP made a pointless semantic separation.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Neat article. It occurs to me that much of the history of
| interactive fiction consists of exploiting players' sense
| of functional fixedness.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Yes, sort of... Apple Fitness is fitness videos, using the
| Apple Watch to track HR and other stats, with Apple's Health
| app used to view info later.
|
| Peloton does the same, but also has bike hardware as the
| foundation of their experience.
|
| If Peloton releases a fitness watch, then in addition to
| competing on fitness videos, they begin competing on the watch.
| At that point, Peloton's only unique offering (WRT Apple) is
| the bike.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Peloton also have a much cheaper (than the bike/tread
| membership) video-only product for strength
| training/HIIT/yoga etc. which is pretty directly competing
| with Apple Fitness. It's a similar price, though they do
| still differentiate by having live classes and instructor
| overlap with the bike/tread side.
| Colin_Jenkins wrote:
| sorry website servers were overloaded at Connect The Watts. It
| should be back up soon. In the meantime, you can find a video
| version of the article here: https://youtu.be/858l-fBoZN0
| Colin_Jenkins wrote:
| ok should be back up and working now!
| skc wrote:
| The article speculates that Peleton might be planning on
| launching their own smartwatch. That doesn't sound like anything
| that could possibly end well.
| partiallypro wrote:
| They should just partner with Google/Fitbit, if they are going
| to do this.
| lunatuna wrote:
| I wonder if this is less to do Apple watch and more to do with
| Apple's Fitness+. It is a cheap alternative to Peloton with
| nice happy people and high production quality. Likely not as
| good as Peloton, but will squeeze out a lot of the more casual
| users. From a later comment on going to war with Apple it
| doesn't seem to be a good strategy. The games of hardware
| compatibility are frustrating and limiting to the whole
| industry. But monopolies don't seem to do much better either.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Right, based on this acquisition https://atlaswearables.com/
|
| The article indicated that people were buying Apple watches
| specifically for use with Peloton, so there does seem to be at
| least some market there. By disabling Apple Watch, those people
| won't have an alternative option.
| toxik wrote:
| If I bought a product for a specific feature and that company
| then removes that feature, I would absolutely not want to buy
| their new product - out of spite, in part, but it also just
| seems like an unwise investment
| jen20 wrote:
| I'll go one further: I ordered the plus version of the
| bike, and the sales guy spent a good 50% of the upswell
| from the regular bike explaining about the Apple Watch
| support. I'll be cancelling the order (before it's even
| been delivered) now, and probably never considering another
| product from them.
| thies226j wrote:
| I don't know about the US, but in Germany taking away a key
| feature from people who paid for said feature without
| compensation is enough for a big lawsuit.
| Leparamour wrote:
| >in Germany taking away a key feature from people who
| paid for said feature without compensation is enough for
| a big lawsuit.
|
| Germany isn't exactly famous for harsh rulings on
| companies' unlawful activities.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| Orange Fitness has a smart watch that you only wear when
| exercising, and seems to have been thriving with it prior to
| the pandemic. Apparently it zero-interaction authenticates you
| to their gym equipment, which is a great user experience.
| Peloton cult folks might wear branded apparel and the watch
| _beyond_ exercising, but everyday folks would no doubt wear the
| Peloton watch while exercising and then take it off afterwards,
| same as Orange.
| hparadiz wrote:
| With fitness trackers people ultimately care about how well the
| tracking data syncs with third party systems. Given that the
| Apple Watch is a fashion/status symbol that also happens to
| have a highly accurate fitness tracker in it as well I suspect
| people will be more willing to drop their Peloton than drop
| their Apple Watch so I hope Peloton knows what they are doing.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Peloton is a status symbol too, it'll be interesting to see
| how this shakes out.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I bet in two, or three years, there will be free Pelotons
| on CL.
| sk5t wrote:
| It may take a little bit longer, but $5 garage sale to
| free-if-you-lug-away is the ultimate fate of every home
| stationary bicycle.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| This is why I joined a gym. The cost of one of these
| fancy home bikes will pay for several years of membership
| (edit: if Peloton costs $39/mo for services, that alone
| will almost completely pay for my membership
| indefinitely), and I don't have to worry about
| maintaining equipment or having it take up space in my
| living room. I have access to not only stationary bikes
| but also treadmills, rowing machines, and all manner of
| strength training machines and free weights. There's also
| a sauna which I don't have at home either.
|
| And if I lose motivation and stop, I just cancel the
| membership. I don't have to dispose of equipment or have
| it sitting around reminding me of my failure.
| hparadiz wrote:
| Outside of the valley most people have still have never
| heard of Peloton. In contrast Apple is a house hold name.
| jaypeg25 wrote:
| Man you live in a bubble if you think nobody has heard of
| Peloton "outside of the valley". wow.
| wil421 wrote:
| 100% not true. I live about as far away as you can get
| (Southeast) from SF and lots of people have Pelotons.
| Even my mom in her 60s has heard of it.
| shagie wrote:
| Its well known outside. One of the most famous riders of
| it has created problems with network security.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/us/politics/biden-
| peloton...
|
| Its certainly a certain set of people who are most
| familiar with them - but that's not a "valley" vs
| "outside the valley" thing.
|
| > Peloton was popular before the pandemic with a wealthy
| subset of home exercisers, but with the quarantine, it
| has become something of a phenomenon in a certain
| socioeconomic bracket. There are Peloton message boards
| ("Joe Biden has a Peloton," Peloton Forum reported this
| week), and the company's celebrity instructors have huge
| followings on Facebook and Instagram.
| Larrikin wrote:
| But the Peloton people are more fanatical than the Apple
| people, especially lately after years of missteps and
| apple products no longer "just" working.
|
| Also there are people who workout who use Android phones.
| taylodl wrote:
| What he's saying is Peloton's market share and brand
| awareness is minuscule compared to Apple's. It's not
| about fanaticism. A minuscule market inhibits
| manufacturing savings at scale. They may be better off
| working with already-established players such as Apple
| and Fitbit. Creating their own fitness tracking market is
| going to be a tough slog.
| Larrikin wrote:
| With the ridiculous cost of the bikes and all their other
| workout equipment, I think they're probably correct in
| thinking their customers aren't the most price conscious
| Johnny555 wrote:
| The bike price isn't that ridiculous for a quality
| spinning bike. I paid nearly as much for my Keiser bike.
| It's the $39/month fee that's expensive... That's almost
| $500/yr.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| That $39/month permits several users and access to a lot
| of fitness classes beyond just the bike. If you've ever
| hired a personal trainer at a gym or paid for gym
| classes, you've almost certainly spent more than
| $39/month, and certainly more than that if it wasn't just
| for you.
|
| If you _just_ use it for the cycling classes and for
| yourself, it 's probably not a great deal (financially).
| But if you also do the HIIT, running, yoga, strength,
| etc. classes and you (like many people) are a bit more
| consistent with a coach (even a virtual one) than working
| out by yourself, it can be worth it.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I pay $14.99 for the standalone Peloton app, which also
| lets me do all of of those classes. And if Peloton raises
| the price of that app to where I think it's too
| expensive, I can move to another one without losing all
| of my fitness tracking history since I track that with my
| Garmin watch.
| taylodl wrote:
| You make an excellent point. It enables them to create a
| "workout platform" where all their products interface
| directly with their fitness tracker. Their customers
| presumably wouldn't mind wearing a separate Peloton
| fitness tracker while working out whereupon they could
| then upload their data to their phone if they so desire.
| Then they can move all the multi-device interaction
| complexity to a single product line, the fitness tracker,
| and the reset of their portfolio only needs to interact
| with a single product - the fitness tracker. This
| actually makes a lot of sense.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Being able to sync different devices into one place is key.
| How do you get an overall view of fitness and health when
| information gets siloed into different applications/services.
| If you don't have a central datastore that they can all send
| info to, then you're forced to stay within a single
| ecosystem. Which sucks if you like different products from
| different companies and becomes impossible when you want
| equipment that the ecosystem you're stuck in doesn't even
| offer.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I've used a number of smart watches and the Apple one
| honestly just works better. Android wearables have just not
| advanced at all since they first came out.
| hparadiz wrote:
| I've played with and it is highly accurate and I like that
| it keeps the data "on the device" and doesn't send it to
| any 3rd party server. To query the data you actually need
| an iOS app running on the device. You can look at your data
| offline too when you're on a mountain with no cell service.
|
| However this kills half their market because of people like
| me who are invested in the Android eco-system so much that
| having an iPhone is a non-starter.
|
| The Galaxy watches from Samsung are equivalent though and
| I'd say about the same accuracy for things like step count,
| calories, distance.
| emodendroket wrote:
| The build quality is worse and mine gave up the ghost
| after a year.
| kart23 wrote:
| Doesn't Peloton still have ANT+? Plus a lot of other gym
| equipment uses ANT+ too, I can't understand why the apple watch
| doesn't have this functionality.
| danShumway wrote:
| Insert standard Cory Doctorow style rant about how if Peleton had
| Open APIs on its devices and its services, anyone could add Apple
| Watch support without their permission.
|
| From the article:
|
| > But even if it is planning a release later this year, taking
| away some of the Apple support now could be a strategic tactic to
| help early adoption.
|
| Is this the type of competition that's good for consumers? Is
| this a good market outcome that we like to see happening? Or
| would it be better if Peleton was forced to compete by adding new
| features to their own smartwatch rather than taking features away
| from every other platform/device?
| jaypeg25 wrote:
| It's bold of Peloton to assume that their cult is willing to go
| along with removing features from another cult.
|
| I love my Peloton but don't have an Apple watch so I don't have
| a dog in this fight, but I have friends who do who really look
| to their Apple watch for HR/general fitness monitoring, and if
| the idea is to get people to adopt to the Peloton
| watch/wearable, well, that's gonna be a real tough battle to
| win.
| apetrovic wrote:
| I have Apple watch. Apart from fitness monitoring, Apple
| watch is tightly integrated in the ecosystem - I can answer
| my phone on it, check my notifications, ping the missing
| phone, I have 1Password app on it for various PINs, it
| unlocks my Mac and I can double-click on the button on it
| instead of typing my password, I can allow my kid's requests
| for additional screen time on it, allow two factor
| authentication requests, tell my podcast app what should do
| with incoming episodes... Everything above I'm doing on daily
| basis. Leaving all of that just for a fancy indoor bike looks
| like a tough sell. But I don't have Peloton, so maybe I'm
| wrong.
| mikestew wrote:
| I also have an Apple Watch. I looked at Peloton's offerings
| back when we were in the market for a treadmill. Would have
| bought one, too, except that giant-ass screen is good for
| one thing: watching Peloton classes. No Netflix, no nothing
| on that screen but Peloton. And people complain about
| _Apple 's_ lock-in? So we bought something else that works
| with Zwift and a host of other offerings.
| fudged71 wrote:
| I don't know if that's true. Are the GymKit APIs even available
| to developers? I assumed it was kept to partners only.
| danShumway wrote:
| I didn't think so, but you could very well be right.
|
| That being said... /Peloton/Apple/s and I feel the point
| still stands. It's a weird feature of IP law that either
| Apple or Peloton deciding that they don't like each other
| means X hundreds or thousands of users just have their
| products that they've already bought suddenly get worse
| overnight.
|
| I think at some point we should ask whether that's a
| consequence of IP that's desirable for the market and/or for
| users.
| jmull wrote:
| The problem is, publishing an API is making a promise: you're
| promising that it's safe to build on the API because it will be
| maintained into the future and will avoid breaking
| compatibility.
|
| These promises can be expensive to maintain, restrict changes
| and if you break the promise, it's worse than if you had not
| made the promise in the first place.
|
| Imagine Peloton did open their API and some third-party did
| create Apple Watch support. Every time they do a software
| update or release a new machine, they may break something in
| the third-party integration, which leaves the third-party to
| scramble to fix the issue. To mitigate this, Peloton would have
| to do communicate changes and provide beta releases -- that is,
| start and run a developer relations program.
|
| This is not small potatoes. Opening an API that will actually
| be useful is a big, on-going deal.
|
| Now also consider the third-party who has created the
| integration. They are making a promise of their own to their
| end-users, especially if they are charging _or_ manage user
| data. Yet they are highly dependent on Peloton 's promise (API)
| to be able to fulfill their promise to their end-users. It's a
| precarious network of dependencies that will break when the
| interests or priorities of any the parties diverge (and they
| _will_ diverge over time -- they are separate parties with
| different concerns).
|
| Keep in mind that if Peloton has decided they no longer want to
| maintain Apple Watch support, they could just as easily (and
| for the same reason) decide not to maintain the API that would
| make it possible for a third-party to provide that support. In
| fact, I think Peloton would be a lot more OK with cutting off a
| third-party developer -- who is not their customer -- than in
| taking features from their customers directly as they did in
| this case.
| ahepp wrote:
| I think you're dramatically overestimating the cost of an
| open api.
|
| I'd be happy if they just left their own door open, I'm not
| asking for commercial support.
|
| The idea that a useful api would need to be a huge
| complicated affair just doesn't register to me. It's an
| exercise bike.
| Lio wrote:
| To honest "Peloton"* seems a pretty poor solution to indoor
| cycling training when compared to smart trainers and smart
| bikes from the likes of Wahoo, Tacx and Wattbike.
|
| All of those can be connected to simulators like Zwift or a
| host of others and provide way more training options than you
| can get on a high priced, proprietary "Peloton" spinning bike
| no real ergo features.
|
| For example, if you want to ride in an actual indoor peloton
| simulation and make use of drafting for fun and profit, you
| want something like a Tacx Neo running Zwift ...IMHO.
|
| If you ditch "Peloton" and go with what the pros train on you
| can use any smart watch you like.
|
| * It's in quotes because peloton is a common word in wide usage
| in cycling and this company, "Peloton", has tried to trademark
| it. They've spent a not inconsiderable amount of time and money
| threatening bloggers using it in it's true meaning.
| scrose wrote:
| I know a couple people with Pelotons, and am sure it's the
| best option for them. They're not technical at all, and one
| of them doesn't know how to ride a regular bike. They just
| want something that's good quality that they can plug into an
| outlet, get a decent workout on, and sometimes join classes
| or watch videos while riding. IMO, that's exactly who Peloton
| is geared towards.
| unexpected wrote:
| Peloton is a great solution to 90% of the market. 90% of the
| market just wants simple exercise classes with energetic
| instructors.
|
| An actual indoor peloton simulation, with drafting is
| definitely superior on Zwift. 90% of people don't want this -
| the target market is very small and doesn't make sense. This
| is fine! Leaves room for smaller players.
| FpUser wrote:
| I do use bike trainer in winter but could care less about
| classes like Peloton or Zwift (their graphics is utterly
| boring to me). I mostly use cycling applications that show
| actual real road videos.
| s17n wrote:
| I think the number you want is closer to 99.99%.
| tentboy wrote:
| considering zwift has over 2.5 million users, and a
| billion dollar valuation, I think the market is larger
| than you think. I personally know dozens of people who
| use zwift nearly everyday (although my friend groups
| skews heavily towards cyclists/fitness enthusiasts)
| unexpected wrote:
| If we want to compare market caps, Peloton has a 35
| billion market cap to zwift's 1 billion. Also, to counter
| your anecdata, I live in Texas and no zero people that
| use zwift, but many that use a peloton.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"I live in Texas and no zero people that use zwift"
|
| This is simply not true. Perhaps you do not know those
| people but there are plenty of Texans using Zwift.
|
| As for market cap - I own and use many old things. As
| long as they work why would I give a flying fuck about
| market cap of the companies that had made those. They
| might not even be (like my treadmill) in business
| anymore.
| tlear wrote:
| I think smart trainer with Zwift + classes would be a perfect
| combo. Trying not to get dropped is damn fun.
|
| Personally I need outside time be it running or riding a
| bike. And I don't care to train at home for improving my
| performance. Still a good enough simulation with a good coach
| and I might bite
| kleinsch wrote:
| I have a friend with a $1200 smart trainer setup and he rides
| his Peloton 4x/week. The bike is way smoother and quieter
| than a Wahoo and he finds the coached workouts more
| motivating than riding in a CGI countryside.
| RankingMember wrote:
| Especially in the time of COVID and many more people
| working from home, the huge difference in volume between a
| magnetic resistance spin bike vs a bike on a trainer cannot
| be overstated.
| vernie wrote:
| * "Apple" since apple is a common word describing a type of
| fruit.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| " There are a lot of freaks on this stupid website."
|
| Quoting this anons about page
| fastball wrote:
| Right but Apple doesn't sell apples.
| jsolson wrote:
| I'm very solidly in Peloton's target market. I have _zero_
| interest in anything related to pro cycling, and to be honest
| near zero interest in cycling. I needed to lose weight, and
| it helps to have someone on the other side of the screen
| pushing me to kick my own ass. I like being able to look at
| my workout history and re-do past classes to see if I can
| push a little harder. We got one mid-pandemic, and thanks to
| it I'm likely to exit the pandemic at the lowest weight and
| in the best shape I've been in over the last ~20 years. Cost
| was not a factor in our decision-making process.
| jehlakj wrote:
| This. It's kind of like putting together your own PC vs
| buying a prebuilt.
|
| Not everyone is motivated enough to build it themselves if
| they have the means to buy a prebuilt.
|
| Having said that, an exercise bike was sort of my gateway
| to hobby cycling and I ended up investing in a smart
| trainer and a used road bike. Once you set it up and find
| an app you prefer, you can't go back. Just as you can't go
| back to buying a prebuilt PC if you've built one in the
| past.
|
| A little bit of research goes a long way, but some people
| would rather not and just focus on what's important:
| getting fit. Setting up a smart trainer, although extremely
| simple, wasn't obvious when I first got into it. I wasn't
| sure which parts to choose and why.
| jsolson wrote:
| > Just as you can't go back to buying a prebuilt PC if
| you've built one in the past.
|
| Eh, I think it depends on where your life takes you.
| Other than an IBM PC XT, I'm not sure we ever had a pre-
| built desktop PC in our home while I was growing up.
| Naturally I built all of my computers going off to
| school, but around ~2004 I made the jump to mostly Macs
| (and later Chrome devices) -- since then the closest I've
| come to building my own PC at home is buying an Intel NUC
| kit and outfitting it with an SSD and some RAM. That
| said, I think I get my fill of computer tinkering at work
| fiddling with BIOS and other firmware SPIs, PCIe cabling,
| bad QSFP optics, and even the odd trivial PCB rework :)
|
| On the other hand, while I don't see it as likely I'll
| get into biking, I own enough sets of skis to call it a
| quiver, yet I'm still actively debating which new kit to
| pick up for next season.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I think the main draw of a Peloton is the classes.
|
| I have a Bowflex bike and my wife and my wife pays for a
| Peloton subscription just for the classes.
| alistairSH wrote:
| This is why I bought a Wahoo Kickr. Mostly open platform, I can
| use it with whatever apps I want (Zwift, TrainerRoad, etc). And
| at a fraction of the cost.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| > And at a fraction of the cost
|
| Maybe a fraction of the money, but you still pay for that cost
| elsewhere, mainly in terms of convenience. Of course with
| something so integrated like Peloton, you pay in lack of
| extensibility.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Not really. A Wahoo KICKR costs WAY WAY less than a Peloton.
| The KICKR Snap is even lower. The hardware itself has no
| subscription fee. They integrate with the training platform
| or platforms of your choice.
|
| And the integration is super solid. You pretty much just turn
| on the trainer, and open up (eg) Zwift on your iPad, and
| you're off to the races.
|
| Source: I am a serious cyclist, and use these things 3-4
| times a week.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Well, you've got to pay for a bike as well, because the
| kikr doesn't come with it. Or use the same bike you're
| using outside for normal riding and faff around with
| mounting it each time you want to use it.
|
| What I'm saying is that Peloton is a whole integrated
| experience which has, in some regards, more conveniences.
| Some people value that.
| alistairSH wrote:
| $900 for the Kickr direct-drive trainer (plus the cost of a
| bicycle, if you don't own one)
|
| And then $15/month for Zwift.
|
| Peloton is $2500 (if you want auto-resistance). And then a
| $40/month subscription. And if Peloton folds, or changes
| their mind on services, or obsoletes the device you
| purchased, you're SOL.
|
| I have my Kickr set up in the basement. It's no less
| convenient than a Peloton - it's there all the time, and I
| run Zwift through an iPad (but it will run on a laptop, Apple
| TV, Android phone, etc).
| kingosticks wrote:
| They do have lots of integrations with other platforms so you
| can get at the data via what those platforms expose, but do you
| have a way to get at your data without going through a 3rd-
| party? I don't think Wahoo have their own public API yet,
| still.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I don't think the data goes to Wahoo at all. I'm not running
| their app (other than firmware updates) - the trainer's BT+
| signal is picked up directly by the iPad/Zwift. That's the
| big difference - Peloton uses a proprietary signal, so nobody
| other apps can use it.
| kingosticks wrote:
| Ahh I see. It is great they (and the other smart trainers)
| have now embraced ANT+ FE-C and Bluetooth Smart. Peloton
| are all about lock-in. No thanks!
| acoard wrote:
| Any suggestion for someone interested in the same stuff (Zwift,
| open platforms, etc), but who doesn't have a dedicated bike to
| hook up with a Wahoo Kickr? The Concept 2 Bikeerg[0] had my
| eye.
|
| [0] https://www.concept2.com/bikeerg/concept2-bikeerg
| alistairSH wrote:
| I don't know anything about the BikeErg. But, I do own a CII
| rower. The rower's data goes through CII's servers, then
| synced from there to Strava (or wherever else). No direct
| integrations (though I think the signal is open, just nobody
| has built an app apart from CII).
|
| My recommendation, if you're a cyclist, would be a Wahoo
| Kickr Snap (wheel drive). Easy to mount the bike, wheels stay
| on, so easy to pull off when you ride outside. Then use
| whatever app you want (Wahoo's own, if you want basic stuff;
| Zwift if you want the social stuff and racing; TrainerRoad if
| you want straight up training programs with no fluff).
|
| The Wahoo and Stages bikes both look really nice, but they're
| mega-$$$$ (more than the Peloton, IIRC).
| kbos87 wrote:
| How hard it is to connect even the first generation bike to a
| watch or heart rate monitor is ridiculous to the point that I've
| never figured it out. It seems confirmed impossible with an Apple
| Watch; supposedly it's possible with other brands but was
| prohibitively difficult with my Garmin.
|
| Agree that this is short sighted and a game they can't win. My
| watch works perfectly fine for me without being connected to the
| bike; they lose for not ingesting my heart rate data.
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