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I was floored when I realized the Peloton has no games and it's closed to third-party developers. It seems to just have group classes which couldn't be less int

I was floored when I realized the Peloton has no games and it's closed to third-party developers. It seems to just have group classes which couldn't be less interesting to me. I'd ask "what were they thinking?" but it apparently sells like hotcakes, so it's me who's out of touch.

sneak 6y ago
I had one (on a bad recommendation from an SV friend) and sold it, because in addition to being totally closed, the music in the classes is also utterly abysmal. I dumped it on craigslist and replaced it with a $250 "dumb" spin bike, a $10 tablet mount, and an Apple watch I already had. I don't get cadence data, but I could with a pedal magnet thing if I actually cared. Their reddit is also heavily astroturfed, which makes me never want to do business with them again. Kudos to them for figuring out how to make 100%+ margins, I guess. It's just very much not for me.
- dvdbloc 6y ago
  And for even more fun, you can use all the money you saved not buying a Peloton on an enormous television and spin in front of that.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  It's easy for me to shake my fist at them, but if I think about it, maybe their subscription business model might be one of the only things that work. For example, if they opened up their platform, then people could just choose other content sources that are free or pay money into someone else's pocket, like other group classes. Otherwise Peloton could try the eShop approach where their group classes compete on an eShop where they take 30% of the cut, but that market is tiny and still has to compete with just using your iPad while you pedal. On the other hand, I'd consider buying one if there was more to do than group classes and maybe I'm not alone. I'm not cocky enough to think I know what the masses want, but it does seem like their lack of ambition about what can be done with the bike could be leaving a lot of money on the table.
matsemann 6y ago
Yes, there are so much incredible bike-software out there. TrainerRoad is fantastic (and check out their podcast!), Zwift is fun (races, group rides), also Sufferfest, Rouvy and others. However, since the resistance of the bike isn't readable or controllable by other software, the Peloton is just for all other usage than the Peloton app just a dumb spinning bike. Instead I'm using a Kickr Core and my normal bike, no lock in there, and much cheaper. Someone has also now made a physical device to adjust the resistance, so it can be used with other software [0]. I think Peloton really should use ANT+ and open up, would make the bikes usable for many more people. Of course, maybe it's the subscription Peloton wants to make money on, not the bikes? [0]: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/12/shift-smart-trainer-first-project-to-make-a-peloton-bike-zwift-accessory.html https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/12/shift-smart-trainer-firs...
ramphastidae 6y ago
Peloton is a fad and will be dropped for the next exercise fad in 2-5 years, just like SoulCycle was. For now, they are feasting.
- hedberg10 6y ago
  You can ridicule fads, but I think it's interesting. I know people will pay a reasonable price for a product they might not even need, but an unreasonable price? How the hell does that happen?
  - koolba 6y ago
    When they’re trapped in their homes, gyms are closed, and they have disposable income from not being allowed to travel, the range of “reasonable price” expands quite a bit.
    - hedberg10 6y ago
      Good point. But the company was doing quite well before the pandemic, no?
      - beaconstudios 6y ago
        it's a spin class you can do from home. Plenty of people already pay high prices for spin classes, and it adds the convenience of being able to participate from home. It makes sense that it would be popular, especially among the middle class demographic spin classes are usually aimed at.
  - cosmodisk 6y ago
    The demographics for these kind of products is very different. It's either those who do have enough money not to care about the cost or the so called aspiring ones: who don't have money but want to fit in or relate to the better off groups. It reminds me when the latest Iphone came out( the most expensive version). Guess who bought it? Our CEO and a member of my team,who was probably on the lowest salary in the company. Peloten is no different to this.
rkangel 6y ago
I'd guess that it's actually a classic razorblades model - the real product is the classes and the bike is just a way to be able to do the classes from home. It's probably not surprising that a group of tech people tends more towards introversion and exercising alone, whereas the general population likes the group aspect for motivation.
- matsemann 6y ago
  It's not about introversion, it's the format of the workouts. There are so much more that could have been done with the hardware, instead of limiting to this small use case. For instance I bike with my club on Zwift using Discord in a group setting. I participate in Zwift races against others. All social stuff, just different.
  - boringg 6y ago
    Apparently there is a indiegogo or other crowdsourcing company that is making a conversion of peloton to allow people to use zwift by putting some hardware on top. Not ideal but gives the bike more function. Will be interested to seee if it’s any good. Clearly not as good as my wahoo kikr
    - _ihaque 6y ago
      It wouldn't be too hard to make a modification to the PeloMon that allowed this. Right now it is a listen-only device, but with an added UART it could just as well control the Bike.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    All the mainstream exercise gear seems to be pretty locked down AFAIK. In the rowing area, even the latest Concept2 controllers look to be pretty old school though they do seem to have a way to connect to phone apps these days. (Though there still isn't a lot there.) Hydrow goes for the more immersive experience--haven't used one; don't know if it has any third-party support or not.
    - 6y ago
chrisseaton 6y ago
> I was floored when I realized the Peloton has no games and it's closed to third-party developers. It seems to just have group classes which couldn't be less interesting to me. I don't understand what you thought the product was? It's an exercise bike. You do exercise classes on it. It's not a games machine. What were they thinking? They were thinking it's an exercise bike.
- cowsandmilk 6y ago
  By games, I assume parent was talking about things like zwift, which is even called out in the article. Most exercise bikes that cost similar to peloton support working with external software so you can do things like race on a virtual course. And gamification through badges is pretty standard exercise fair. My parent’s senior community even has gamification via small prizes for how many days you go to the gym.
  - mcintyre1994 6y ago
    FWIW Peloton does have some of that gamification stuff, at least for the standalone offering (no bike etc). You get badges for taking different numbers of each type of class, daily/weekly streaks, total minutes, special events etc. They also send a summary email each month showing which days you worked out, badges earned, number of classes/minutes, and deltas from the previous month.
    - alisonkisk 6y ago
      Those are all engagement metrics to make you spend money, not exercise metrics to make you achieve fitness.
      - mcintyre1994 6y ago
        I agree, I was responding to this part of the parent comment: > And gamification through badges is pretty standard exercise fair. My parent’s senior community even has gamification via small prizes for how many days you go to the gym. I was just pointing out that Peloton does gamification through badges and that it includes an equivalent of days going to the gym.
gfxgirl 6y ago
almost entirely unrelated but I would love some way to play Synth Riders with AR goggles instead of VR. On expert/master levels a good song is a serious aerobic workout but I can't do more than 1-2 songs at a time because sweating in VR sucks. Heck, probably just standing in front of a polarized 3D display with polarized 3D glasses and VR motion controllers would work. I find it extremely fun and would be happy to do it as a workout.
onion2k 6y ago
Adding games would get "people who want serious exercise equipment that they can play games on" to come to the product, but it might also put off "people who want serious exercise equipment to focus on exercise". In other words, adding games could actually make their market smaller. This is similar to Nintendo's rigourous curation of their platforms - allowing the latest Call of Duty game on the Switch might add a few million in sales, but only at the cost of losing tens of millions of people who like the fact the Switch doesn't have that sort of game. Their market is bigger if they say no to things the market doesn't want to be associated with. This is a pretty classic problem in product management - you have to avoid adding features what could drive your largest market away from the product.
- thebean11 6y ago
  Nintendo absolutely would allow it. There are many CoD games on Nintendo consoles.
  - InitialLastName 6y ago
    This. Playing CoD on the Wii (with the rifle Wiimote holder, circa 2008) was astonishing. It really felt like the next step from the arcade shooters and Duck Hunt in terms of the fun/immersion balance, in a way that had been missing from a generation of games.
- matsemann 6y ago
  > "people who want serious exercise equipment to focus on exercise" I don't think that's Peloton's moat at all. For that there are much better alternatives. This is for casual gym goers.
somedude895 6y ago
Seriously, if they created an ecosystem and allowed 3rd party apps on there, that could sprout some really cool stuff like games that might even convince me to get one of those bikes. But yeah, it'd be a challenge to make that as profitable as their current business model.
- usrusr 6y ago
  Just get an indoor bike with ANT+ FEC if you want to avoid the real bike + trainer form factor, plenty of those available (e.g. the Wahoo Kickr Bike). Peloton isn't a hardware company, it's a company that sells streamed sessions with hot spin instructors. The hardware is merely tool for them and creating an ecosystem of competitors on top of the hardware is a definitive non-goal for them. But hardware companies do exist.
eplanit 6y ago
Doom on a bike could become a thing, I suppose.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
You'd think building a competitor would be easy; build a bike with bluetooth i/o and an app for phone, tablet, laptop, smart TV etc. And open the API for developers, so they can hook their games up to it as much as they please. I'm guessing Peleton is winning at the minute because of it being an integrated unit and having the marketing.
- mcintyre1994 6y ago
  That wouldn't be a competitor, unless one of the 'games' was a constant stream of extremely slick and professional live and on-demand classes with exceptional instructors. IMO that's their differentiator.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon have all the resources needed to quickly fling out a gamified bike that appeals to more segments than peloton. Lost opportunity.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ska 6y ago
  The product isn't really the hardware, it's the classes. Or at least it's the classes + hardware. Being able to put hardware together that "does the same thing" is only a fraction of a competitor. What you describe might work well for a different market.
liminal 6y ago
Sex appeal. Peloton is built on sex appeal. The instructors lead workouts wearing makeup, jewelry and bikini tops (well, the female ones anyway). Vox has an article [1] looking at SoulCycle and it sounds similar: instructors were good looking and exhorted to be incredibly thin. That said, it's a great way to get a good 30 minute cardio workout in. [1] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22195549/soulcycle-decline-reopening-bullying-bike-explained https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22195549/soulcycle-decline-reo...
- cam0 6y ago
  The Peloton instructors are also universally the best spin instructors I've ever encountered, and I've been to countless spin class in every large US city over the past decade. Some have come close, but being able to have world class spin instructors in my living room has been the huge selling/sticking point for me.
  - quercusa 6y ago
    What makes a good spin instructor?
    - cam0 6y ago
      It's pretty difficult to define, and the definition will vary person to person. It's similar to asking what makes a good coach? For me it's a combination of energy, attitude, verbal clarity, and also a personality that I find attractive and pleasant, i.e. the type of personality that I'd enjoy spending an hour listening to and taking instruction from. Also of course a sound knowledge of form, technique, and healthy strategy.
- rconti 6y ago
  I'd say simplicity, too. I'm a long-time cyclist and a 4 year Peloton owner. I work in tech (obviously) but I frankly have only the vaguest idea of what combination of computers and displays and sensors and adapters I'd need to use to Zwift. And the slack channels I swim in seem to be full of folks always fiddling with what kinds of sensors to use and how to get them to reliably communicate. You can just swipe a credit card (or, probably, ApplePay 1 button purchase) and have it show up at your house and work.
nwsm 6y ago
Their demographic is people who do "Spin" (SoulCycle, Orangetheory are good examples), which are (usually) intense group sessions led by an instructor. So they are mostly emulating that experience.
umeshunni 6y ago
Peloton has a web browser and there have been hacks to make games run on the browser. e.g. https://medium.com/@cezarbabin/hacking-the-peloton-bike-to-play-a-cycling-video-game-3b2de1243172 https://medium.com/@cezarbabin/hacking-the-peloton-bike-to-p... or even running Stadia on the peloton https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/gj4aut/wireless_support_means_stadia_on_the_peloton/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/gj4aut/wireless_sup...

sneak 6y ago

I had one (on a bad recommendation from an SV friend) and sold it, because in addition to being totally closed, the music in the classes is also utterly abysmal. I dumped it on craigslist and replaced it with a $250 "dumb" spin bike, a $10 tablet mount, and an Apple watch I already had. I don't get cadence data, but I could with a pedal magnet thing if I actually cared. Their reddit is also heavily astroturfed, which makes me never want to do business with them again. Kudos to them for figuring out how to make 100%+ margins, I guess. It's just very much not for me.

dvdbloc 6y ago
And for even more fun, you can use all the money you saved not buying a Peloton on an enormous television and spin in front of that.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
It's easy for me to shake my fist at them, but if I think about it, maybe their subscription business model might be one of the only things that work. For example, if they opened up their platform, then people could just choose other content sources that are free or pay money into someone else's pocket, like other group classes. Otherwise Peloton could try the eShop approach where their group classes compete on an eShop where they take 30% of the cut, but that market is tiny and still has to compete with just using your iPad while you pedal. On the other hand, I'd consider buying one if there was more to do than group classes and maybe I'm not alone. I'm not cocky enough to think I know what the masses want, but it does seem like their lack of ambition about what can be done with the bike could be leaving a lot of money on the table.

matsemann 6y ago

Yes, there are so much incredible bike-software out there. TrainerRoad is fantastic (and check out their podcast!), Zwift is fun (races, group rides), also Sufferfest, Rouvy and others. However, since the resistance of the bike isn't readable or controllable by other software, the Peloton is just for all other usage than the Peloton app just a dumb spinning bike. Instead I'm using a Kickr Core and my normal bike, no lock in there, and much cheaper. Someone has also now made a physical device to adjust the resistance, so it can be used with other software [0]. I think Peloton really should use ANT+ and open up, would make the bikes usable for many more people. Of course, maybe it's the subscription Peloton wants to make money on, not the bikes? [0]: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/12/shift-smart-trainer-first-project-to-make-a-peloton-bike-zwift-accessory.html https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/12/shift-smart-trainer-firs...

ramphastidae 6y ago

Peloton is a fad and will be dropped for the next exercise fad in 2-5 years, just like SoulCycle was. For now, they are feasting.

hedberg10 6y ago
You can ridicule fads, but I think it's interesting. I know people will pay a reasonable price for a product they might not even need, but an unreasonable price? How the hell does that happen?
- koolba 6y ago
  When they’re trapped in their homes, gyms are closed, and they have disposable income from not being allowed to travel, the range of “reasonable price” expands quite a bit.
  - hedberg10 6y ago
    Good point. But the company was doing quite well before the pandemic, no?
    - beaconstudios 6y ago
      it's a spin class you can do from home. Plenty of people already pay high prices for spin classes, and it adds the convenience of being able to participate from home. It makes sense that it would be popular, especially among the middle class demographic spin classes are usually aimed at.
- cosmodisk 6y ago
  The demographics for these kind of products is very different. It's either those who do have enough money not to care about the cost or the so called aspiring ones: who don't have money but want to fit in or relate to the better off groups. It reminds me when the latest Iphone came out( the most expensive version). Guess who bought it? Our CEO and a member of my team,who was probably on the lowest salary in the company. Peloten is no different to this.

rkangel 6y ago

I'd guess that it's actually a classic razorblades model - the real product is the classes and the bike is just a way to be able to do the classes from home. It's probably not surprising that a group of tech people tends more towards introversion and exercising alone, whereas the general population likes the group aspect for motivation.

matsemann 6y ago
It's not about introversion, it's the format of the workouts. There are so much more that could have been done with the hardware, instead of limiting to this small use case. For instance I bike with my club on Zwift using Discord in a group setting. I participate in Zwift races against others. All social stuff, just different.
- boringg 6y ago
  Apparently there is a indiegogo or other crowdsourcing company that is making a conversion of peloton to allow people to use zwift by putting some hardware on top. Not ideal but gives the bike more function. Will be interested to seee if it’s any good. Clearly not as good as my wahoo kikr
  - _ihaque 6y ago
    It wouldn't be too hard to make a modification to the PeloMon that allowed this. Right now it is a listen-only device, but with an added UART it could just as well control the Bike.
- ghaff 6y ago
  All the mainstream exercise gear seems to be pretty locked down AFAIK. In the rowing area, even the latest Concept2 controllers look to be pretty old school though they do seem to have a way to connect to phone apps these days. (Though there still isn't a lot there.) Hydrow goes for the more immersive experience--haven't used one; don't know if it has any third-party support or not.
  - 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago

> I was floored when I realized the Peloton has no games and it's closed to third-party developers. It seems to just have group classes which couldn't be less interesting to me. I don't understand what you thought the product was? It's an exercise bike. You do exercise classes on it. It's not a games machine. What were they thinking? They were thinking it's an exercise bike.

cowsandmilk 6y ago
By games, I assume parent was talking about things like zwift, which is even called out in the article. Most exercise bikes that cost similar to peloton support working with external software so you can do things like race on a virtual course. And gamification through badges is pretty standard exercise fair. My parent’s senior community even has gamification via small prizes for how many days you go to the gym.
- mcintyre1994 6y ago
  FWIW Peloton does have some of that gamification stuff, at least for the standalone offering (no bike etc). You get badges for taking different numbers of each type of class, daily/weekly streaks, total minutes, special events etc. They also send a summary email each month showing which days you worked out, badges earned, number of classes/minutes, and deltas from the previous month.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    Those are all engagement metrics to make you spend money, not exercise metrics to make you achieve fitness.
    - mcintyre1994 6y ago
      I agree, I was responding to this part of the parent comment: > And gamification through badges is pretty standard exercise fair. My parent’s senior community even has gamification via small prizes for how many days you go to the gym. I was just pointing out that Peloton does gamification through badges and that it includes an equivalent of days going to the gym.

gfxgirl 6y ago

almost entirely unrelated but I would love some way to play Synth Riders with AR goggles instead of VR. On expert/master levels a good song is a serious aerobic workout but I can't do more than 1-2 songs at a time because sweating in VR sucks. Heck, probably just standing in front of a polarized 3D display with polarized 3D glasses and VR motion controllers would work. I find it extremely fun and would be happy to do it as a workout.

onion2k 6y ago

Adding games would get "people who want serious exercise equipment that they can play games on" to come to the product, but it might also put off "people who want serious exercise equipment to focus on exercise". In other words, adding games could actually make their market smaller. This is similar to Nintendo's rigourous curation of their platforms - allowing the latest Call of Duty game on the Switch might add a few million in sales, but only at the cost of losing tens of millions of people who like the fact the Switch doesn't have that sort of game. Their market is bigger if they say no to things the market doesn't want to be associated with. This is a pretty classic problem in product management - you have to avoid adding features what could drive your largest market away from the product.

thebean11 6y ago
Nintendo absolutely would allow it. There are many CoD games on Nintendo consoles.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  This. Playing CoD on the Wii (with the rifle Wiimote holder, circa 2008) was astonishing. It really felt like the next step from the arcade shooters and Duck Hunt in terms of the fun/immersion balance, in a way that had been missing from a generation of games.
matsemann 6y ago
> "people who want serious exercise equipment to focus on exercise" I don't think that's Peloton's moat at all. For that there are much better alternatives. This is for casual gym goers.

somedude895 6y ago

Seriously, if they created an ecosystem and allowed 3rd party apps on there, that could sprout some really cool stuff like games that might even convince me to get one of those bikes. But yeah, it'd be a challenge to make that as profitable as their current business model.

usrusr 6y ago
Just get an indoor bike with ANT+ FEC if you want to avoid the real bike + trainer form factor, plenty of those available (e.g. the Wahoo Kickr Bike). Peloton isn't a hardware company, it's a company that sells streamed sessions with hot spin instructors. The hardware is merely tool for them and creating an ecosystem of competitors on top of the hardware is a definitive non-goal for them. But hardware companies do exist.

eplanit 6y ago

Doom on a bike could become a thing, I suppose.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

You'd think building a competitor would be easy; build a bike with bluetooth i/o and an app for phone, tablet, laptop, smart TV etc. And open the API for developers, so they can hook their games up to it as much as they please. I'm guessing Peleton is winning at the minute because of it being an integrated unit and having the marketing.

mcintyre1994 6y ago
That wouldn't be a competitor, unless one of the 'games' was a constant stream of extremely slick and professional live and on-demand classes with exceptional instructors. IMO that's their differentiator.
Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon have all the resources needed to quickly fling out a gamified bike that appeals to more segments than peloton. Lost opportunity.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ska 6y ago
The product isn't really the hardware, it's the classes. Or at least it's the classes + hardware. Being able to put hardware together that "does the same thing" is only a fraction of a competitor. What you describe might work well for a different market.

liminal 6y ago

Sex appeal. Peloton is built on sex appeal. The instructors lead workouts wearing makeup, jewelry and bikini tops (well, the female ones anyway). Vox has an article [1] looking at SoulCycle and it sounds similar: instructors were good looking and exhorted to be incredibly thin. That said, it's a great way to get a good 30 minute cardio workout in. [1] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22195549/soulcycle-decline-reopening-bullying-bike-explained https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22195549/soulcycle-decline-reo...

cam0 6y ago
The Peloton instructors are also universally the best spin instructors I've ever encountered, and I've been to countless spin class in every large US city over the past decade. Some have come close, but being able to have world class spin instructors in my living room has been the huge selling/sticking point for me.
- quercusa 6y ago
  What makes a good spin instructor?
  - cam0 6y ago
    It's pretty difficult to define, and the definition will vary person to person. It's similar to asking what makes a good coach? For me it's a combination of energy, attitude, verbal clarity, and also a personality that I find attractive and pleasant, i.e. the type of personality that I'd enjoy spending an hour listening to and taking instruction from. Also of course a sound knowledge of form, technique, and healthy strategy.
rconti 6y ago
I'd say simplicity, too. I'm a long-time cyclist and a 4 year Peloton owner. I work in tech (obviously) but I frankly have only the vaguest idea of what combination of computers and displays and sensors and adapters I'd need to use to Zwift. And the slack channels I swim in seem to be full of folks always fiddling with what kinds of sensors to use and how to get them to reliably communicate. You can just swipe a credit card (or, probably, ApplePay 1 button purchase) and have it show up at your house and work.

nwsm 6y ago

Their demographic is people who do "Spin" (SoulCycle, Orangetheory are good examples), which are (usually) intense group sessions led by an instructor. So they are mostly emulating that experience.

umeshunni 6y ago

Peloton has a web browser and there have been hacks to make games run on the browser. e.g. https://medium.com/@cezarbabin/hacking-the-peloton-bike-to-play-a-cycling-video-game-3b2de1243172 https://medium.com/@cezarbabin/hacking-the-peloton-bike-to-p... or even running Stadia on the peloton https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/gj4aut/wireless_support_means_stadia_on_the_peloton/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/gj4aut/wireless_sup...