Working out at home is rarely an ideal situation. Unless you’re an MLB superstar, Hollywood mega-mogul or tech billionaire, you likely don’t have an entire gym’s worth of equipment in your house; most of us lack the space, the money or both. But making your way down to the health club on a regular basis can be tricky for many of us, as we constantly juggle the responsibilities of work, family, friends and, well, just about everything else that gets between us and making our way down to Equinox or Crunch.
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Which is where the home gym system can come in handy. These multi-role exercise machines are hardly a new idea — Bowflex has been around nearly 40 years — but they’ve taken on new life with the advent of the smartphone, Bluetooth, Wifi and the Internet of Things.
One of the latest additions to the realm of smart home gym equipment is Speediance’s Gym Pal. The foundation of the device is a black-and-white platform that looks a little like a wheel-less Segway, packing a pair of resistance motors; this platform is paired with a variety of accessories such as handles, benches and barbells, which combine to enable you to perform hundreds of different exercises. It’s significantly cheaper than options like Tempo and Tonal, whose home gym setups start at $2,915 and $3,995, respectively.
Sounds great, in theory. But how does that play out in practice? To find out, DPReview senior editor Eric Limer took one home for a test; here’s what he thought.
Speediance Gym Pal: What We Think
The Gym Pal makes for a comparatively stylish, very versatile home exercise solution. Its high-tech features are complex enough to give it a bit of a learning curve, and its accessories make storage a bit trickier than you might think based on the website, but overall, this is a good fit for anyone who needs a comprehensive way to work out without leaving the comforts of home.
To learn more about our testing methodology and how we evaluate products, head here.
