Ergatta Rower Review: Do Rowing Games Keep You Rowing, and Is Lite Enough?
By The Ironnook Test Desk ·
7.8
ergatta.com
The verdict
Ergatta's pace-line games are a smart answer to the boredom that kills most rowing habits, and the oak Lite delivers the same games as the $500 dearer Luxe. It is quiet, looks good and stores upright. The catch is a roughly $39 monthly membership, and a water rower is less precise than a Concept2. Buy the Lite if games motivate you.
Best for: Rowers who quit classes and want game-style motivation in a living room
What we liked
Pace-line games and races give a target to beat instead of a coach to follow
Lite has the same games as the Luxe for $500 less, with a 5 year warranty
Water resistance is smooth and quiet, and the hardwood frame suits a living room
Lite stores upright in about 21 by 23 inches of floor space
30 day risk free trial and 0 percent financing up to 36 months
The RowErg is the rowing machine we would buy with our own money. It is durable, repairable, accurate and free of subscriptions, and its PM5 monitor gives numbers that mean the same thing on every erg in the world. The costs are noise, a 96 inch footprint and no built-in screen or coaching. If you need silence or guided classes, look elsewhere. Everyone else should start here.
The Origin is the nicest rowing machine to live with: quiet enough for a flat with thin walls, smooth on the rail and backed by genuinely good classes filmed on real rivers. It is also more than twice the price of a Concept2 RowErg, needs a $50 monthly membership for anything beyond Just Row, and weighs 145 lb. Buy it only if noise and motivation are your problems. If they are not, the Concept2 does the exercise for less.
7.3$2,195 (plus $50/mo membership)
Games sit behind a membership of about $39 a month, or $32.50 prepaid yearly
Lite caps at 320 lb and has a 17.3 inch screen and standard speakers
Water resistance gives less precise training data than a Concept2
No live coach voice, so form guidance is thinner than on class-led rowers
Filling the tank takes time, and moving a full rower is awkward
Ergatta turns rowing into a pace-line game on a hardwood water rower. The Lite costs $1,699, the Luxe $2,199, and a $39 monthly membership sits on top. Here is which to buy.
Rowing is the best full-body cardio most people never keep doing. It is dull. A coach on a screen shouting about your stroke rate does not fix that for everybody, and the people who quit usually quit in month three. Ergatta's answer is not a coach at all. It is a game: you row to keep a boat on a pace line, race other rowers and chase streaks.
We looked at what that costs, which model to buy, and whether the idea holds up past the novelty.
How the games work
Ergatta workouts show a screen with a target path, and your stroke pace moves your avatar relative to it. Hit the pace and you pull ahead, drift off it and you fall behind. Ergatta's own page describes game workouts for every level, mood and schedule, and the app also has multiplayer races.
The game-based workouts page on Ergatta's site, which leads with a video of its pace-line rowing games.
This is a different kind of motivation from a class on a Hydrow or Peloton Row+. A class gives you a person to follow. A game gives you a target to beat. If you like leaderboards and structured intervals, the second is stickier. If you want to be talked through form, the first is better, although Ergatta does publish a rowing form feedback tool.
Lite or Luxe
Ergatta sells two machines, and the page lists them side by side. Both are made in Rhode Island from hardwood, in a partnership with WaterRower, and both carry a five year warranty.
Ergatta's own comparison of its two rowers, the cherry Luxe and the oak Lite, shown side by side.
Lite: $1,699, oak, 17.3 inch screen, 82 by 23 by 38 inches, 40 lb before water, 320 lb capacity.
Luxe: $2,199 (a $2,499 sticker is struck through on the page), cherry, 21.5 inch screen, 86 by 23 by 41 inches, 78 lb before water, 500 lb capacity.
The gap is $500. For that you get a larger screen, premium speakers and a higher weight limit. One review we read called the Lite 90 percent of the experience for $700 less. The games are the same on both, so we agree unless you weigh over 320 lb or want the machine as a showpiece.
The Ergatta Lite page: $1,699 purchase price, 1,447 reviews and a financing offer of $46.97 a month.
A price note: some older listings quote a starting price near $1,299. The page we checked says $1,699, so treat anything lower with suspicion.
The membership is the real running cost
The rower is not the only bill. Ergatta's games sit behind a membership. According to review sites such as BarBend, it runs $39 a month, or $32.50 a month if you prepay a year, with cheaper rates on three and five year plans. On the one year plan that is $390 a year, so the first-year cost of a Lite is about $2,090 before delivery.
The Ergatta Luxe page: a cherry wood rower, $2,199 purchase price and a $64.20 a month financing offer.
Financing exists: 0 percent APR plans over 3 to 36 months through Klarna and Affirm, and a 30 day risk free trial. That trial matters, because rowers are bulky and returning one is a hassle.
Water, wood and the room
Water resistance is smooth and quiet, with a whooshing sound that a lot of people like. A water rower also rides more like a boat than a flywheel rower. It is not as exact as a Concept2 for training data, which is why serious rowers still choose that machine. Ergatta sells a Connection Kit that lets you run its games on your own Concept2, and that is the cheapest way into the system if you already own one.
The Lite stores upright in 21 by 23 inches of floor space, which is genuinely small, and it looks better than a black aluminium rail in a living room. Remember the water: filling a tank takes time and moving a full rower is not easy.
Who it fits, and who it does not
A game rower suits people who already know they respond to scores. If you have kept up a streak on a language app or a step counter, you will probably keep one here. If you only train when someone is watching, the multiplayer races help, but they depend on other members being online when you are.
Space and noise are fair arguments for it too. A water tank gives a steady swish rather than the whine of a fan flywheel, so early mornings in a flat are less of a negotiation. What it does not give you is a path to serious erg testing, which is where a Concept2 RowErg wins.
Verdict
Buy the Lite if you want a rower you can leave in a living room, you respond to games and you can live with $39 a month. Pass on the Luxe unless you need the extra capacity. Skip Ergatta entirely if you want rowing classes with a human voice, or if a Concept2 plus a free app suits your budget better.
The WaterRower Original Oak is the rower to buy if the machine lives in a room people sit in. The water tank is quiet and smooth, the oak frame is good furniture, and it stands upright to store. The monitor is basic and the warranty is thin, so for pure performance per dollar the Concept2 still wins. Pick this one for looks, calm and a stroke that feels like a boat.
