Peloton Bets Big on Body-Tracking
Uncanny Valley | WIRED8 Huhti 2022

Peloton Bets Big on Body-Tracking

Peloton has had a turbulent couple of years. After the ups and downs of the pandemic economy came a rash of bad press spurned by a series of tragic product accidents. The resulting stock dips and executive shake-ups put the fitness tech company's future in flux. But now, Peloton is trying something new. Or at least new-ish. The Peloton Guide is a device with a camera that sits on your TV and monitors your workout. (Just don't call it a Kinect.) It's far more modest than Peloton's large, fancy stationary bikes and treadmills, and something Peloton hopes will lure in more subscribers. Still, it's another bet on our continued interest in at-home workouts—a market that may not be as robust as Peloton hoped it was.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED executive editor Brian Barrett joins us for a conversation about Peloton's newest product and the company's future.

Show Notes:

Read Lauren’s story about the new Peloton Guide. Here’s Adrienne So’s review of the Guide.

Recommendations:

Brian recommends the novel Middlemarch by George Eliot. Lauren recommends the Apple TV+ show WeCrashed. Mike recommends the memoir The History of Bones by John Lurie.

Brian Barrett can be found on Twitter @brbarrett. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jaksot(428)

Andrew Yang on Micromobility

Andrew Yang on Micromobility

Description:Andrew Yang, former presidential and New York mayoral candidate, really likes to ride his electric scooter. He's been a big proponent of micromobility in general, among other grand ambitio...

8 Loka 202137min

Amazon Bots

Amazon Bots

About this time every year, Amazon announces a slew of new products. Some of them are fairly normal: new Echo devices, smart screens, video doorbells. But sometimes the company will roll out something...

1 Loka 202133min

Scratching the Surface

Scratching the Surface

It's product announcement season, and this week was Microsoft's turn. The company slid out a few new Surfaces, a weird flippy laptop thing, and an eco-friendlyish mouse that looks like a bar of soap. ...

24 Syys 202129min

iPhoning It In

iPhoning It In

It's September, which can only mean one thing: Apple's got some new products. This week, the company held a virtual event to detail its slate of upcoming iPhones, iPads, and smartwatches. Along with t...

17 Syys 202132min

Boosters and Mandates

Boosters and Mandates

On Thursday, President Biden announced a number of new policies to fight Covid-19. Chief among them: More vaccine mandates are coming. Now, businesses that employ over 100 workers will have to require...

10 Syys 202137min

Power Problems

Power Problems

This week, Hurricane Ida swept through the southern US, hitting Louisiana and parts of Mississippi especially hard. The storm disabled the power grid across Louisiana, including heavily populated area...

3 Syys 202128min

I Never Metaverse I Didn’t Like

I Never Metaverse I Didn’t Like

The metaverse. A simulated world, controlled with inputs from our reality to merge cyberspace and meatspace into one plane of existence. If this sounds like a sci-fi concept from the early ‘90s, that’...

27 Elo 202136min

Pixel Party

Pixel Party

By now, Google has gotten the hang of making solid affordable phones. Its new Pixel 5A has just about all the features most people need in a phone, and the company is selling the handsets for the dece...

20 Elo 202131min