Roger Fingas
GymKit — Apple's platform for two-way sync between an Apple Watch and cardio equipment — is now available at a lone gym in New York City, having previously grabbed toeholds in Australia and England.
New Yorkers can try the technology at the Life Time Athletic at Sky, located at 605 West 42nd Street, CNET said on Monday. The facility is said to have 13 compatible TechnoGym machines, including ellipticals, treadmills, stationary bikes, and stair-climbers. Life Time says it will eventually bring equipment to 130 other locations, beginning in 2018 with gyms opened during 2017.
Support should also be coming to Equinox gyms in 2018, starting in New York City and spreading from there. That chain will be using Life Fitness machines.
GymKit was launched in October with watchOS 4.1, but didn't arrive at a real-world gym until it came to an Australian branch of Fitness First in November. Earlier this month it appeared at a Virgin Active gym in London.
GymKit tries to provide more accurate indoor workout data by syncing stats such as distance, speed, weight, floors climbed, heart rate, and estimated calories burned. Users simply have to pair their Watch with a machine via NFC, and once a workout is over, data is saved in watchOS but wiped from the gym equipment.
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7 Comments
This is nice. Hopefully, 24 Hour Fitness will join in.
Hope to eventually see this in home equipment insteadvof the crude systems in most of them.
unfortunately it will take time to refresh all the existing machines.. like years. my chain gym still has 30-pin connectors for the old iphones.
It's a great Idea,. but this is a Apple Only Solution. Does this work only with the Apple Watch or does it work for those with iPhones with NFC also? This of course leaves everyone out without a Apple Watch or iPhone if that works, which is half of the U.S. Population. Does this make sense to replace expensive equipment for stuff that support Gymkit? It's not like it's a Carplay/Android Auto type of solution. Since this is Apple, we know it's unlikely to ever be supported on Android devices. Not that I'm a fan of Android and the fragmentation that OS has. This is a pretty big coup for Apple to have. If Google doesn't have anything quickly to get out there, they'll be left behind in this area for years to come. Until places are ready to Upgrade hardware once again supporting both. After all Google copied Apple when they came out with Android Auto after Apple released Carplay. So it's only a matter of time.