What You Need To Know About Peloton’s Body-Tracking Camera

You can now get the Peloton brand name in your home for less than $300. The Guide, a home workout camera, is a more low-key and affordable option designed for strength training.

Peloton’s Guide camera hooks up to your TV and watches your workout, helping instruct you as you exercise. Since it’s a Peloton product, you’ll get access to its library of programming and other features designed to maximize your workouts.

The Camera counts your reps during each workout section and fills up an icon shaped like a bead of sweat accordingly. If you complete enough reps during the time given, you’ll fill the icon and get the point. At the end of a workout, the points are tallied, and you’re awarded a badge based on how well you did.

Peloton announced The Guide back in November with an initial price tag of $495 and the inclusion of a heart-rate band. The company has since had a rough start to 2022 after reports of internal documents saying that production was temporarily halted due to low demand. Unfortunately, February wasn’t any kinder to Peloton, who saw interest from Amazon about the acquisition and another damning report showing they sold rusty bikes after concealing problem areas.

The biggest draw of The Guide is that it’s much simpler to set up than an exercise bike or treadmill and requires no additional space. But, to make sure we’re not just paying $300 for a workout camera, Peloton designed The Guide with Movement Tracker that appears in classes and scans your movements to monitor if you’re doing the exercise correctly and will improve over time with machine learning.

The Guide also has a Self Mode that lets you see yourself next to the instructor to check your form. Meanwhile, the Body Activity feature keeps track of your workouts, remembering the muscles you recently worked out and recommending focusing on other muscle groups to keep your body balanced. Finally, if you’re ever confused about a particular exercise, a Movement Details function acts as a video dictionary with specific explanations on how an activity is done.

For those rightfully concerned about putting another internet-connected camera device from a large corporation in their home, the Peloton Guide includes a physical mute switch for its microphone that allows for hands-free navigation and a shutter that covers the Camera when the Guide is not in use. 

Unlike the company’s previous products, which mostly feature a camera for social interactions, the Guide’s Camera allows the user to see themselves on-screen alongside one of Peloton’s trainers during a workout so they can ensure they’re matching the trainer’s form during a strength training session, while a Movement Tracker provides inspiration to stick with a given routine until it’s complete.

As with all of Peloton’s products and services, the Guide requires a subscription to the company’s content, and those not already paying around $54/month for full access through the Peloton app, Bike, or Tread can access the strength-training classes, and all of the Camera’s features for $17/month.