These digital 'personal trainers' ensure home workouts never feel like a cop out – and some even work with your existing TV
Embracing clever gadgets can make your home exercise routine more focused and effective. Here are some of the best you can buy
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Whatever your goals, often the best results you'll see when exercising come with the gentle (or not so) encouragement of a personal trainer. Enlisting a personal trainer's help will keep you accountable, make sure you're pushing yourself so that you can reach your goals, and also keep an eye on your form.
However, using a personal trainer has some drawbacks, too. Unless you have a home gym, you'll more than likely need to head out for a session, and you're at the whim of how booked up they are with clients.
Now, however, smart home workout equipment has evolved in a way that you can get the personal training experience at home. These systems offer the best of both worlds, melding the core aspects of working with a personal trainer with an enhanced home workout. You'll, undoubtedly, have heard of Peloton and its bikes and treadmills, but these other clever gadgets work by either creating a live connection with a personal trainer, or using clever AI technology, to monitor your form and your workout progress - the ultimate convenience.
Fitness mirrors
10 years ago, today's fitness mirrors might have seemed like science fiction inventions, but in 2023 there's a growing number of brands offering these clever pieces of home gym equipment. A fitness mirror might look like an unassuming freestanding mirror from the outset, but it not only allows you to see your own form when working out, they're almost like huge smart tablets where you can load up and view classes, too.
The best fitness mirrors, like Lululemon's The Mirror (opens in new tab), deliver on the personal training touches in two ways. First up, the mirror offers real-time data that can help you work out smarter, not harder, and while the integrated camera can help you perfect your form, you can also customize exercises to meet your own capabilities. On the other hand, the camera allows you to get feedback from a real instructor (if you so wish).
Different brands offer different approaches, and their offerings can be upgraded with workout equipment to increase the range of exercises you can undertake. Some 'mirrors' actually use 3D sensors instead, too.
Generally, fitness mirrors require a membership-based subscription to access classes, much in the same way the genre-defining Peloton does, while the initial outlay for the mirror itself is often not cheap either.
Lululemon might be best known for their lustworthy workout gear, but their fitness mirror has equally good looks. It's sleek, can be wall-mounted or freestanding, and has no visible wires. Membership for unlimited classes cost $39/mo, and as the mirror features a camera you can turn on, you can get feedback from your instructors if you so wish.
There are a few things that make Forme Life's fitness mirror stand apart from the crowd. Not only can you invest in Forme Lift which has strength-training equipment built into the side of this touch screen mirror, but it takes on a more traditional personal training guise through creating bespoke workout plans and offering weekly one-to-one sessions with your own coach. It's a luxury offering, and its membership fees reflect it.
Tempo Studio isn't a mirror in the traditional sense, but it's a 3D sensor-loaded fitness cabinet filled with weights and other equipment, making it's exercise offering more versatile than some others, while still offering feedback on form. Memberships start from $30 a month.
Turn your TV into a PT
While fitness mirrors might be the ideal choice for a home gym, we don't all have that luxury. If you're shorter on space, or the potentially eye-watering prices of the mirrors aren't for you, there's an introductory series of gadgets that can connect to your TV, or are integrated into them already.
These tend to be small cameras like the Peloton Guide (opens in new tab), which not only allow you to see yourself on the TV during your workout, but also offer rep counting for accountability. All the while you get Peloton's digital guidance on how to best construct an at-home workout routine.
Some others even have AI that can help suggest how to improve form for your workouts, giving you that personal training experience, even though you're not engaged with an actual person.
The Peloton Guide is a small camera that can installed on a TV to turn it into a personal training device. It gives you access to a huge variety of classes (though you'll still need a subscription), and there's a Self-Mode where you can see yourself in one half of the screen and the instructor in the other, helping you to better copy the moves and check form. It has an AI rep counter, too.
Samsung's Health TV offers a Smart Trainer that connects to third-party apps like Obé, Echelon, and Jillian Michaels. Smart Trainer allows you to see yourself on the TV alongside your instructor, while also using motion-detecting AI to count reps, check form and estimate calories burned, if that's something you're interested in. The requirements? A QLED TV from 2021 or later (trying shopping one from Walmart), a Logitech camera and the Smart Trainer app.
If the Tempo Studio fitness 'mirror' above caught your eye, but you're looking for something a little more subtle to incorporate in your home, Tempo Move might be the answer. It's a cabinet that comes with color coded free weights (so that the AI sensor can pick up the difference), as well as a dock for your iPhone that connects it to the TV for classes, rep recognition, form guidance and more.
Breathe better
Now for something a little different. The Airofit is a gadget that's been designed to help improve your breathing when exercising - what the brand behind the gadget describes as the 'most overlooked areas when it comes to improving personal fitness.'
So how does it work? You pop the trainer into your mouth and the app will measure your current lung function. Then, you can set 'resistance' to help train your breathing muscles, just like any other muscle, while exercising. You'll find benefits in your general fitness and improved sports performance, but it's suggested it could also help with conditions like stress, sleep disorder and anxiety.
Hugh is the Deputy Editor of Livingetc.com. From working on a number of home, design and property publications and websites, including Grand Designs, ICON and specialist kitchen and bathroom magazines, Hugh has developed a passion for modern architecture, impactful interiors and green homes. Whether moonlighting as an interior decorator for private clients or renovating the Victorian terrace in Essex where he lives (DIYing as much of the work as possible), you’ll find that Hugh has an overarching fondness for luxurious minimalism, abstract shapes and all things beige. He’s just finished a kitchen and garden renovation, and has eyes set on a bathroom makeover for 2022.
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