Peloton Changes

It looks like there are some significant changes about to be announced at Peloton. There seem to be lots of new bits of Peloton hardware inbound (I’m not especially interested in that but I will cover it in a minute) and then there are deeper, native integrations with the Apple platform which will, perhaps, have more longer-term significance.

Peloton STRENGTH

Job postings support the rumours that Peloton is looking to expand the team that markets their STRENGTH workouts and there are even filed patents for  ‘smart’  weights to complement the service. I’m guessing they won’t be cheap…

Source: US Patent: US D857 , 811 S

Peloton TREAD

Next up, PeloBuddy has this pixelated leaked image of the claimed, new Peloton TREAD which is rumoured to be a lower cost treadmill with a swivel monitor, perhaps coming in at around $2500 rather than the existing price tag of >$4000. Ouch. I’m looking for a half-decent treadmill recommendation if anyone has one, ideally, quite a bit cheaper and all my ‘smarts’ will come from the NPE RUNN that I fasten to it! The existing Peloton will remain as ‘TREAD+’ (plus).

new Peloton Bike | Peloton Bike+

This looks set to be a new HIGH-END Peloton bike announced alongside the company’s earnings call NEXT WEEK (10 Sep). The new Bike is set to feature a 23.5″ swivel monitor, coming in at over $2500 with the existing Bike (no plus, 21.5″ monitor) model being reduced to below $2000.

Source: Bloomberg

Deeper Apple Watch integration

Apple is going all-out to expand the scope and reach of its fitness offering, including with the new Apple Watch 6 / 6SE. Apple doesn’t (yet) care so much about triathletes and ultra runners and wannabe athletes, there simply aren’t enough of them to make it worth Apple’s while to specifically target their often complex, sporty needs. However, the general ‘health + fitness’ end of the market is the bread-and-butter that Apple needs to keep fresh and tasty. In support of this, we have seen the recent disclosure about Apple’s upcoming fitness subscription service which will add what Apple considers to be premium features, albeit for a monthly fee. Company’s like subscriptions as they give some degree of predictability to future revenue streams and also these revenue streams keep on flowing when the customer (you) forgets to cancel them.

So, Apple has been rumoured to have been working closely with Peloton and it looks like Peloton has been granted one-tap NATIVE access to the Apple Watch and there even could be more programmed automation between the Apple Watch and the Peloton programmes.

Perspective: It’s been great that Google has slightly changed the look at the weather tile on Wear OS, methinks they need to get their finger out from wherever it’s stuck and get cracking on a much deeper health and fitness integration like Apple before Apple gets too far ahead in that particular realm.