Why I Won’t Buy a Home Gym With Artificial Intelligence

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of Instagram ads for AI-powered home gyms. You’ve probably seen them too—stylish wall-mounted displays featuring incredibly toned instructors, testimonials promising “the future of fitness,” and before-and-after photos that make it look effortless.

The smart home fitness equipment market is booming. According to Business Wire , it was valued at $3.2 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $4 billion by 2030. These figures show that many people are investing in fitness technology that offers personalized, convenient, and effective home workouts. Fitness is another way to fuel artificial intelligence , transforming boring old equipment into high-tech systems capable of providing real-time feedback, tracking results, and tailoring workouts to each user’s needs. It all sounds impressive—even revolutionary. But here’s the important thing to understand about fitness trends: they take hold, requiring much more than just the latest technology.

After months of seeing these ads online, I became curious enough to figure out what they were, whether they were worth the hype, and whether they actually made sense to most people.

Fitness trends are rarely sustainable.

Whatever your fitness goal, the methods for achieving it will be time-tested and likely not very appealing. Look at Tae Bo, Zumba, neck trainers, even the world of CrossFit—most fitness trends don’t last long after the novelty wears off.

Of course, exercise science is advancing, but nowhere near as fast as some trendy gadget that fits into a cultural context. Thus, we see “fitness” being reduced to a consumer product—something bought, used briefly, and then discarded when something more appealing comes along. In 2025, spin classes will be out of fashion, Pilates and strength training will be popular, and your Bowflex will likely be gathering dust in your mom’s basement.

In fact, in 2024, Bowflex and American Home Fitness, which bet heavily on the home fitness boom, filed for bankruptcy . In the more recent past, Peloton seemed invincible. Now, Peloton’s revenue has declined 2.8% in 2024 to $2.71 billion, marking its third consecutive year of decline . What was once a cultural phenomenon now struggles to retain customers and justify its high price tag.

For something to stick in fitness, three questions are crucial: Is it affordable? Is it effective? Will you personally continue doing it?

AI-powered home gyms can work, and you might come back again and again, but it’s the first question that complicates things.

What is a home gym with artificial intelligence?

Home gyms with artificial intelligence are digital fitness systems that combine hardware and software to create a personalized workout program at home. Tonal is perhaps the most well-known, but there are also Tempo, Speediance, Amp, and others.

Here’s how they typically work: For example, Tonal is a wall-mounted unit roughly the size of a large television that uses electromagnetic resistance instead of traditional dumbbells. You pull cables attached to adjustable brackets, and the system can digitally provide resistance of up to 90 kg. Built-in cameras and sensors track your movements, and artificial intelligence adjusts the weight in real time based on your technique and performance. The screen displays instructors leading the class, tracks your reps and sets, and the system learns your strength patterns over time to suggest when to increase the weight or change exercises.

Other systems work differently—Tempo uses free weights with 3D sensors that monitor your form, and some use smart cables or connected dumbbells—but the basic idea remains the same: sophisticated technology that tracks your workout, corrects your form, monitors your progress, and adapts to your fitness level, all from the comfort of your living room.

The benefits of an AI-enabled home gym.

Smart home gyms offer significant benefits, including compactness, personalization, time savings, structured workouts, and potentially better injury prevention thanks to exercise technique monitoring. And for many, devices like Tonal, Amp, and others are here to stay. “As a professional home gym equipment tester,” says Jose Guevara of ShreddedDad , “I see them becoming more common not only in full-fledged workout stations but also in individual pieces of equipment like cable machines, dumbbells, and sometimes a combination of both. They’ll never be as durable as weight plates or barbells, but they have their audience.”

According to Guevara, these systems appeal to “those who need help and want a turnkey system where they can choose workouts on demand, just follow them and not have to think about what to do during the workout.”

These products have their audience, just like Peloton bikes and high-end fitness studios. But for me, the important question isn’t whether they’re right for some people, but whether they’re a revolutionary solution for home workouts, as they’re marketed, or just another expensive piece of equipment that most people will enthusiastically use for a few months before the novelty wears off.

However, another Tonal user told me that comparing these AI systems to a 1990s Bowflex is like comparing a surgical robot to a rusty scalpel. But this analogy presupposes that your body is a machine governed by the logic of “infinite innovation.” A “smart” gym isn’t really a medical solution. It’s an accessory, a luxury item that depends on who can afford it. I don’t think the problem with home workouts has ever been a lack of sufficiently sophisticated technology. The problem is that working out is hard, even harder to do regularly, and no amount of AI can fundamentally change this human reality. Some things simply can’t be hacked.

Performing calculations in the home gym using artificial intelligence.

These products typically come with significant upfront costs. Take Tonal , a leading AI-powered home gym system, for example. The device itself costs around $4,300, with mandatory professional installation costing over $295, plus smart accessories included. Then comes a monthly subscription fee of around $60 for full access to classes and features. In total, the first year costs around $5,300, followed by an additional $720 per year for the subscription.

Compare this to traditional gym memberships. According to a 2023 report , the average monthly gym membership costs $58, which equates to approximately $696 per year. Budget options like Planet Fitness cost between $15 and $23 per month, or $180 and $276 per year. Even mid-range gyms like LA Fitness typically cost between $40 and $56 per month.

So, to break even on Tonal compared to a mid-range gym membership of $50 a month:

Year One: Tonal costs $5,300. Your gym membership costs $600. You’re already $4,700 in debt.

Year 2: You pay $720 for your Tonal subscription. Your gym membership still costs $600. Your balance now totals $4,820.

Year 3: Another $720 versus $600. Your deficit is now $4,940.

By year five: You’ve spent $8,180 on Tonal, compared to only $3,000 at the gym.

It will take approximately eight years of continuous use before Tonal becomes price-competitive with a traditional gym membership. Eight years. That’s assuming the equipment doesn’t break down, the company doesn’t go bankrupt (remember, Bowflex and Peloton couldn’t sustain their models), and you actually use it continuously for almost ten years.

And the subscription cost is real. Unlike traditional dumbbells, which work whether you pay a monthly fee or not, many digital fitness products require a subscription for the entire duration of access to workouts. “I’ve seen some of these companies go bankrupt,” says Guevara, “so if that happens, you’re left with a product that won’t work unless their software is updated.” We’ve seen subscription traps from other companies actually render your equipment inoperable.

Proponents will claim it saves time and money on commuting. Fair enough. But for the Tonal investment to be financially worthwhile, you’ll need to use it at least three to four times a week for eight years straight. If you don’t go to the gym for $50 a month, are you sure you’ll be using your smart gym consistently for years to come, once the novelty wears off?

There’s another unspoken price of home comfort, similar to those struggling with working from home: the lack of a gym culture. Don’t underestimate the power of casual human interaction, personal trainers who can physically correct your technique, the support of fellow workout buddies, the ritual of leaving the house to workout, or perhaps even the silent camaraderie built on shared suffering. If you’re like me, this separation between home and training space is a significant psychological boost.

Result

The best exercise is the one you’ll actually do consistently. If you weigh all the options and find that Tonal fits your budget and workout habits, great. Personally, as artificial intelligence permeates every aspect of my life, I find great solace in working out as a rare screen-free activity.

I’m irritated when AI-powered home gyms are marketed as essential solutions rather than luxuries available only to those with spare cash and a little space. On a global scale, given their current cost, AI-powered home gyms seem like a passing fad to me. And in two years, when the next fitness innovation finally solves the home workout problem, I’m sure someone will write exactly the same article.

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