There’s a bevy of at-home fitness brands all trying to take your money — including Peloton and Mirror — and the cost to get the hardware and access to classes isn’t cheap. Tempo wants to make that experience a bit more attainable with a sub-$400 piece of hardware that works with your iPhone.
The company just took the wraps off of the $395 Tempo Move, a nightstand-looking cabinet with many weights and barbells inside. It connects to your TV to display your workout, while your iPhone monitors your form and pace during the exercise. It’s a neat concept and essentially miniaturizes the cost and size of the Studio — Tempo’s first product that takes up a lot more space and costs a lot more at $2,195.
We got to spend about an hour with Tempo Move, and it’s certainly a unique offering. We’ll need to spend more time with it to render a final verdict, but we’re impressed by the way it makes use of a device you already have while considerably cutting down the cost of a dedicated at-home fitness setup.
How to preorder Tempo Move
The Move is available now for preorder from Tempo and Best Buy, and it will begin to ship in early December. Tempo is selling the Move for an introductory price of $395, though the cost will eventually go up to $495.
So what exactly is the Tempo Move?
The main goal with Tempo Move is to shrink down the Tempo Studio experience. For over $2,000, the Studio gives you a 43-inch screen baked into an aluminum housing that holds weights, barbells and a computer. On the front, you have sensors to track you while you’re working out. The advantage is that it can monitor your workout to give you a personal training-like experience — telling you if your form is correct, what your pace is and what corrections to make along the way.
Tempo Studio is massive, though, and super expensive. For $395, Tempo Move is a smaller plug-and-play solution. The key piece of it beyond the Move itself is an iPhone with Face ID, as Tempo has figured out how to use the True Depth sensor found in most modern iPhones to track you, the weights and your workouts. And it all stays on the device. Just note that you will need an iPhone XS/iPhone XR or newer (the cheaper iPhone SE isn’t supported) to use Tempo Move. The company has also noted that it will take advantage of the depth-sensing LiDAR scanner in the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro series sometime in the future, though we’re not sure how just yet.
The Move itself is more compact than the Studio and looks like a vertical storage cubby or a nightstand. It’s available in two wooden shades, light or dark, with a matching magnetic door on the front. Inside you’ll store the dumbbells and weight plates. It’s just 2 feet tall and 1.6 feet wide. You’ll pick a class via the Tempo app for iOS and then dock your iPhone into the core. It will then take over your TV with a live view of the class and a pretty sleek interface.
We stood about 4 feet away from the iPhone on the Tempo Move with the Sensor looking at us and assembled our weights. We went pretty light, but you can choose to go heavier. On-screen, we saw Tempo recognize how much weight we were lifting, and we began the workout. It informs us about our pace — if we’re going too fast or slow — along with positive and negative feedback along the way to keep us on track. It’s pretty neat and feels like a digital personal trainer. Tempo will also learn your habits over time and adjust recommendations like how much weight you need or what courses you should take next.
And while our demo with it was pretty quick, it added another element to the workout in that it’s giving you real-time feedback. It’s also pretty marvelous to see this tech working on an iPhone versus an entirely stand-alone device.
What type of classes work with Tempo Move?
Unlike a Peloton Bike, Tempo Move isn’t structured around one type of workout. As part of the $39.95-per-month subscription — which up to six people can use — you get access to live and on-demand sessions across categories like strength, yoga, meditation, cardio and HIIT, among others.
You can access these workouts on Move, Studio or the dedicated mobile apps.
The outlook
Tempo Move is a pretty unique product in the home workout equipment space, and the biggest appeal is the lower barrier of entry. For $395, you’re set up with weights, dumbbells and a dock for your iPhone that will let you track workouts and receive real-time feedback on your performance. You still have to swallow the $39.95-per-month cost for access to classes, though, and bring an iPhone XS/XR or newer to get the whole experience.
Still, we think the Move is a smart way to increase Tempo’s user base, given its more accessible price and setup. We look forward to testing out Move in our home and running through the paces. Move is available for order now in two colors — light or dark — for $395 from Tempo directly.
