The Peloton Guide wouldn’t let me skip a single push-up

Peloton continues to take steps beyond cardio exercise with $295 set-top camera that brings strength training to the lineup. It’s joined by a new all-inclusive $39 monthly subscription (with a $24 introductory offer), which adds movement-tracking strength and core-focused classes to the array of Yoga and bodyweight workouts that already exist in Peloton’s $12 per-month digital service. 

The Guide unit itself looks a lot like the Wired notes, there is a somewhat concerning section in the terms and conditions where Peloton says it may use your biometric data (including facial scans) in the future. This could be as innocuous as identifying separate users in the same household, or something else entirely.

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The company is considering adding the option to share your tracking data to speed up improvements and help address bugs, like those data-sharing requests you get with voice assistants. On that note, Peloton has added a basic voice assistant, in beta, to the Guide, ensuring you can pause, cancel or otherwise control your workout when the included remote isn’t nearby, or one of your kids is having a meltdown during your Core workout. It’s not the most attentive assistant, however, and I would have to bark my commands and increasingly unhinged volumes in order to get it to work.

I appreciate the depth of data and customization Peloton has crammed into the Guide. During a workout, the backing track was a little too loud for me, and despite having only a passing knowledge of Peloton’s software, I was able to find an audio mix option, mid-workout, and increase the levels of the instructor’s voice. This attention to detail is rarely found in fitness videos and software. My time with the Guide was brief, but Peloton will need to ensure the Guide offers enough to warrant the initial outlay and even more expensive subscription. Can it convince existing Peloton subscribers to pay more?