Peloton Row+ Review: Form Feedback Is Clever, But $3,495 Is a Lot of Rower
By The Ironnook Test Desk ·
6.6
onepeloton.com
The verdict
Row+ is the only consumer rower that watches your stroke and tells you what to fix, and the electronic resistance is quiet and smooth. It also costs $3,495 before a monthly membership, with a 12-month warranty on the screen and parts. Buy it if you already live in the Peloton app and are new to rowing. Otherwise a Concept2 does the job for a fraction.
Best for: Peloton members new to rowing who want guided form coaching
What we liked
Camera-based Peloton IQ gives live form feedback and rep tracking
Electronically controlled resistance runs quiet for flats and apartments
23.8 inch swivel screen turns for floor and strength classes
Stands upright on a wall anchor to cut the 94 inch length
Professional delivery to your room is included in the price
What could be better
$3,495 before membership, versus about $990 for a Concept2 RowErg
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)
Classes and Peloton IQ need a paid All-Access membership
Warranty is 12 months on the touchscreen and components
Vertical storage needs a wall anchor and an 8 ft ceiling
Magnetic resistance lacks the accelerating bite of air or water
Peloton's Row+ now lists at $3,495 before membership. Camera form feedback is the one thing no rival rower offers, and a Concept2 costs about a quarter as much.
Rowing is the cardio exercise people most often do badly. The catch, the drive, the finish and the recovery each hide a common mistake, and a flat-screen rower with no feedback will let you practise all of them for months. Peloton's pitch with the Row+ is that a camera and some software can fix that. It is a smart idea, with a steep price attached.
Pricing first, because it moved
Peloton's own page lists the Row+ at $3,495, or $291.25 a month at 0% APR for 12 months with approved credit. That is well above the roughly $2,495 older price lists carry for the original Row, and the maker now brands it the Cross Training Row+. Peloton says the All-Access Membership is separate.
The Row+ shop page: $3,495, financing of about $292 a month and a note that membership is sold separately.
Delivery to your chosen room is included, and a 30-day money-back trial applies to first-time buyers in the contiguous states. The warranty is short for the money: 12 months on the touchscreen and components, five years on the frame.
What Peloton IQ actually does
This is the feature that sets Row+ apart. A camera tracks your movement, and Peloton says you get real-time form feedback and rep tracking, suggested weights and personalised plans. A review at Rowing Machine Nerd rated the Form Assist system 4.5 out of 5 and reported beginners fixing errors such as opening the back too early within the first week.
That claim fits how rowing is learned. You cannot see your own stroke from the seat, and a coach is expensive. For a new rower, a screen that flags a mistake on every stroke is worth real money. For an experienced rower it is mostly noise.
The Row+ on a phone: the screen sits on an arm above the front of the rail.
The 23.8 inch Full HD screen swivels 45 degrees, so you can turn it for floor or strength classes, and it has tuned speakers. Resistance is electronic and quiet. The same reviewer rated the feel 4 out of 5 and said it lacks the "dynamic, accelerating bite" that air or water give. If you want the rower that feels like a boat, this is not it.
Space and storage
The rower measures 94 inches long, 24 wide and 48 tall and weighs 156.5 lb. Peloton says it stands upright on a wall anchor, but that needs an 8 ft ceiling, and it takes up an 8 ft by 2 ft floor footprint with about 24 inches of clearance at the sides and back. Heavy boxes are another consideration for self-assembly: the heaviest weighs about 114.8 lb, so use the delivery team.
Riders must be between 4 ft 11 in and 6 ft 5 in and weigh up to 300 lb.
Peloton's Row+ dimensions and specifications page, which also points existing Row owners to the new model.
If you already own the original Row, the maker pushes the new model on that same page, which tells you where its attention is. Measure the room twice before you order, and remember that a rower you cannot stand upright will sit in the middle of a bedroom for the rest of its life.
The membership is the other bill
The machine is the cost you see. The classes are the cost you keep paying. Peloton's membership page lists app tiers, and its fine print quotes All-Access at $44 a month. Recent reviews cite $49.99. Check the checkout before you commit, because the number has moved more than once.
Plan the running cost over three years rather than one. At $44 a month, membership adds about $1,584 to the machine, which takes the real bill past $5,000. A Concept2 plus a paid rowing app for a year costs a small fraction of that. Rowing Machine Nerd notes the rowing library is thin next to the bike and tread, at roughly 100 classes of 30 minutes or more. The Row+ without a membership is a quiet rower with a blank screen.
Row+ against the alternatives
The obvious rival is the Concept2 RowErg at about $990 with no subscription. It is louder, it has no coaching, and it is the machine competitive rowers train on. A common comparison, in Rowing Crazy, puts Peloton ahead only for people who need instructor-led classes and Form Assist to stay motivated.
The other rival is the Hydrow Origin, which undercuts Peloton on price and offers more rowing content but no form feedback.
Who should buy it
Buy the Row+ if you have a Peloton bike or tread already, you are new to rowing, you dislike working without feedback and the price does not worry you. The form coaching is genuine and the machine is quiet enough for a flat.
Everyone else should buy a Concept2 and spend the savings on lessons or a mirror. We rate the Row+ as a clever product at the wrong price.
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.
