Over the last 72 hours, Peloton first announced that they would be removing support for the Apple GymKit feature on Peloton Bike+, only to share today that they were reversing this decision, and will be keeping Apple GymKit support for the Peloton Bike+ for the foreseeable future.
The news that Peloton will keep the GymKit feature, after initially saying it would go away, has been confirmed to Pelo Buddy by a Peloton spokesperson.
On Monday evening, Peloton began sending out an email to some members, notifying them that the Peloton Bike+ will no longer have the Apple GymKit feature on February 27, 2024. This was a way for people to connect and use their Apple Watch on a Peloton Bike+ (for heart rate tracking and other metrics) with just a tap to their bike tablet.
The email, sent with the subject “We’re Making Moves”, says the following:
Starting 2/27, we’re transitioning from Apple GymKit to Peloton One-Tap tracking with Apple Watch—so you can sync available metrics for classes taken on the Peloton App.
Members also reported seeing a pop-up screen on their Bike+, notifying them that the feature would be going away.
However, Peloton has now decided to reverse this decision, and the Peloton Bike+ will keep GymKit support for the “foreseeable future”. This change to keep the feature is based on member feedback they have received since first announcing the decision. That means that nothing will change for members, and members will continue to have the choice of connecting their Apple Watch during cycling classes by tapping the screen to activate GymKit, or using Peloton’s “One-Tap Tracking” connection method.
Spokesman Ben Boyd, Senior Vice President of Global Communications for Peloton, told Pelo Buddy that Peloton reversed their decision “directly in response to the members” – in other words, enough people raised concerns about GymKit going away that Peloton decided to keep the feature.
Peloton has now posted a statement in the OPP as well, saying:
Earlier this week we shared that we were going to end our integration of Apple GymKit for Bike+. We heard you loud and clear, this is an important feature for you. Based on your feedback, we will continue supporting this integration.
Apple GymKit can be used for Cycling workouts on Bike+ for Members with an All-Access Membership. With Apple GymKit, you can continue to pair and sync your workout data between Apple Watch and Bike+ for these workout types, conveniently providing you with the most accurate metrics with just a tap.
We also want to share that Peloton One-Tap Tracking will continue to be available on Bike+ as well as on all of our equipment, enabling seamless metric tracking across all fitness modalities, including those outside of cycling.
Boyd also shared that members who received the first email notifying them that GymKit support was going away should expect to receive an email letting them know the feature would be kept for the “foreseeable future” – and won’t be going away on February 27th.
That email has gone out, and contained the same messaging as the post Peloton made on Facebook. The email did include an apology, saying “We apologize for any confusion this created, and we are grateful to our Members for sharing their views.”
In the 72 hours that Peloton was saying that GymKit would be removed, they went as far as updating support pages to state that they would be removing support effective February 27th.
Those support pages included a question about why the feature was being removed. There, Peloton said that they were removing Apple GymKit support because “Apple GymKit only supports syncing cycling workouts from the Peloton Bike+. The Peloton One-Tap tracking allows Members with an Apple Watch to stream their heart rate to their Bike+ for all disciplines, including Strength, Bike Bootcamp, Yoga, and others.”
GymKit support has only ever officially been available on the Peloton Bike+, and not the original Peloton Bike. The integration requires a special hardware chip in the tablet that is not available in the original Peloton Bike. It originally worked on both cycling and bike bootcamp classes, but Peloton later removed support for Bike Bootcamp classes. While the Peloton Row and Peloton Tread both also have the same tablet as the Peloton Bike+, GymKit support has never been added for these hardware devices. The Peloton Tread+ tablet is different than everything else, and while a developer showed it could support GymKit, the feature was never officially added there.
The “Peloton One-Tap Tracking” described in the email that Peloton was guiding people to transition to is not a new feature. This is the full Apple Watch support (including heart rate monitor support) that was released in March 2022, and allows watches to connect to all Peloton hardware devices (Bike, Bike+, Tread, Tread+, Row), and all class types – whereas GymKit was only an option for Bike+, and only available on cycling classes.
When you start a class on your Peloton device, if you’ve done the configuration, members see a message on their watch asking if they want to use the watch as a heart rate monitor. By clicking Connect on the watch, the watch then broadcasts heart rate to the Peloton device. Alternatively, members can also open the Peloton app directly on their watch, and start using it as a heart rate monitor that way as well.
With GymKit, a rider can hold their watch up to the top of their screen. They then get a prompt on their watch, asking if they wanted to connect via GymKit. After confirming, the Apple Watch will then be used as a heart rate monitor. In that aspect, there is no functional difference between GymKit and the Peloton app tracking – both send heart rate data to Peloton to display and track during your workout, and record heart rate data to your completed Peloton workout history. Both connection methods also count towards closing your rings in the Apple Health app.
However, for some power users, the GymKit integration is preferred. This is because extra data is recorded to Apple Health for rides that you connect via GymKit. Extra stats recorded included average power, average speed, and average cadence. This only impacts data recorded to Apple’s Health app – the data recorded and shown in your Peloton workout history is the same whether you used GymKit or Peloton’s watch app.
When the Peloton Bike+ was first announced in 2020, GymKit was one of four differentiating features that Peloton used to promote the Bike+ over the Bike. The other three features were the auto-resistance/auto-follow feature, the ability of the screen to rotate, and the higher quality speakers on the Bike+.
This would not have been the first time Peloton has removed a feature. In 2022, Peloton removed the video chat feature from all devices. At the time, Peloton said that feature was removed so they could “focus on introducing new innovative features.”
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The other key difference between GymKit and the Peloton app is that when using a GymKit workout the calorie burn is calculated by your apple watch and not by Peloton. Peloton’s calculation for calorie burn is far too generous … while its likely neither is accurate, I’d much prefer to have the lower number reflected in my workouts.