Peleton Bike: A Gym at Your own Home
So what is it?
With the pandemic causing everyone to stay indoors, the Peleton has come to bring the gym workout experience to your own home. At first glance, the Peloton is just an indoor exercise bike but there’s more to it than just that. With the screen that it comes with, you’re able to have live class sessions with a real instructor or asynchronous classes from previous class sessions. You can opt-in to video call and see others who are taking the class simultaneously and share leaderboard statistics and motivate each other’s progress. “The bigger draw with Peloton was the built-in competitive element of it: seeing that leaderboard somehow did make me pedal harder.”
“Peleton has managed to capitalize on a perfect storm of health and tech trends.”
The Peleton’s main selling feature is the social aspect of the Peleton bike. Where you are able to have classes at anytime you want at the leisure of being at your own home. But along with that, the general features of the Peloton was a stationary bike that featured a built-in computer and a large screen. The bike allowed users to stream live and on-demand classes from the comfort of their homes. The Peloton was also equipped with a heart rate monitor, a cadence sensor, and a power meter for the price of $1995.
The ubiquitous aspects of the Peloton can be seen as a clear-cut “Cloud, Crowd, Shroud” example. The Cloud aspect of the Peloton can be seen as it takes information from its users it is able to store it in the cloud and display it as a leaderboard for users to see. The Crowd aspect comes from the number of users using the product and amassing the data they produce. The Shroud comes in the form as the Peloton bike itself is the accessory taking in the information from users and is able to relay that information to the cloud.
History
The conception of the Peloton began in 2012 when the former Barnes and Noble executive, John Foley, went to the gym and felt that instructor-led workouts were much more rewarding than going to the gym solo and figuring things by his self. With that knowledge, he wanted to bring this experience to the home gym and thusly prototyped the first Peloton. The Peleton started out as a Kickstarter in 2013 and raised $307,000 by the end of campaign. It was marketed as the “Netflix for fitness,” the stationary bike startup Peloton has made it possible to get instructor-led workouts without stepping foot in a gym. In 2014, they had gained the eyes of investors and raised 10.5 million dollars in a Series B Funding.
The Rise
The business was a steady business but what had made it blow up was the Covid-19 pandemic early in 2020. With everybody stuck indoors and the closure of gyms, the need for at-home fitness peaked with businesses seeing 66% increase in sales and a 94% increase in subscribers by September.
Problems
With the sudden uptake in demand, quality control slipped and some customers began experiencing issues with their bikes where pedals snapped off mid-ride. The company took weeks or months to make repairs, further frustrating users. After 120 reports of bikes breaking and 16 reports of customers getting injured, the company issued a recall affecting 30,000 bikes.
With many pandemic restrictions being lifted, the need for at-home fitness has declined and so has the sales. “After losing $439 million last quarter, Peloton decided in January that it would temporarily halt production of its bikes and treadmills to cut costs.” (Vox) The viability of such a product has declined although it seemed too good to be true success.
Another problem is that the idea isn’t unique and can be easily replicated, and competitors are already starting to take a share of the pie. One such company is Mirror which sells a $1,495 smart mirror that streams virtual exercise classes on the surface of the device as you work out.
Speculation for the Future
After the main sprouts of the pandemic,
Former Spotify CFO Barry McCarthy has taken his place, and says he hopes to rescue Peloton by investing in its library of online fitness content and developing new exercise machines, which could include a connected rowing machine and a strength training device.
Down the line, the Peleton company is trying to expand the line in a few certain ways:
Peloton Guide:
The Peleton guide, priced at $295 plus a monthly membership, is a camera that connects to your TV and lets you see yourself on the screen through “Self Mode,” alongside the instructor, so you can check your form in real-time. The Guide uses computer vision to track your strength training movements and gives personalized recommendations. The Guide is part of the “strength” lineup of accessories, more relying on weights and cardio training.
Peloton Digital app:
The Peleton digital app is a more condensed, all-rounded app, priced at $13 a month, with classes ranging from yoga to cycling. You do not need an existing Peleton device to use the app with the main premise of the app being to do workouts with just you and the app, but if you do have additional workout equipment, you are able to use those, if need be.
Pelton Tread:
With the main star being the bike, the Peleton Tread exists as a sister product in the Peleton family. Priced at $2345, like the bike, it has the normal functions of the existing product that it has built upon, but with the added feature of the screen to access courses on their software and have personalized feedback based on a workout routine.
Personal Thoughts
Overall, the whole premise of having a workout classroom digitally was an ingenious idea during the Covid-19 pandemic and a must-have for a home gym. But after the pandemic, the need for such a product subsided, and going to an actual gym became a viable option. Along with its price point, it was not accessible to many and its replicability was something that anyone could copy.
