watchOS 4.1 GymKit Feature Rolls Out to First U.S. Gym

GymKit, the watchOS 4.1 feature that allows the Apple Watch to interface with gym equipment like treadmills, has started rolling out in the United States in a very limited capacity.

According to CNET, GymKit is available at the Life Time Athletic location at Sky in New York City. This is the sole location where GymKit is available, but it is coming to Equinox locations and additional Life Time Athletic locations in 2018.

GymKit is also available at select locations in the United Kingdom and Australia.

CNET was able to test the GymKit functionality, and found it to work well. Setup was a one-tap affair, with a tap on the equipment and then a confirmation on the Apple Watch. Once paired, health data from both gym equipment and the Apple Watch syncs up for a more accurate reading.

GymKit is compatible with fitness machines from TechnoGym, Life Fitness, Matrix, Star Trac, Schwinnn, Cybex, and Stairmaster, with Apple eventually planning to cover 80 percent of the fitness equipment market. At the gym where CNET tested GymKit, the feature works with ellipticals, treadmills, stationary bikes, and stair-climbers.

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Top Rated Comments

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matrix07

9 months ago

I LOVE watching other members at Equinox use their technology while they workout. Even the trainers are glued to screens while they train.

Nobody’s body composition has changed much, if at all, in my three years tenure at my location. The idea that an Apple Watch is a means to enhance your experience at a fitness facility is hilarious and backwards.

It’s tirelessly annoying that humans can feel satisfaction about hitting goals on machines designed to keep you weak (and your stabilising muscles/tissues weaker). Sheesh. People need to get back in touch with their humanity. Scientific feedback and metrics can be awesome, but the only people that truly benefit from them are people who also have many years of trial/error experience, knows what is best for their genetics, and eats bountifully for nutrition, not for pleasure.

Which brings me to this: 90% of your fitness is in your diet and diet alone!

This is all marketing. Barf. I think it’s worse that it works.

Jesus.. have a drink, will you? :rolleyes:

Rating: 3 Votes

OldSchoolMacGuy

9 months ago

Hoping planet fitness will be one of the gyms

Unlikely. Planet Fitness would just 4x all your workout data and give you more free pizza.

It's also unlikely that Planet Fitness, being one of the cheapest gyms in the country, would invest in all new equipment to support this new feature. Lifetime is on the other end as one of the most expensive options and is only doing so as they add new equipment at their higher-end clubs.

Rating: 1 Votes

RobNYC

9 months ago

I will not be holding my breath for my crappy gym to get these any time soon. When they updated the treadmills to ones that had iPhone docks on them they all had the old 30 pin connectors and that was after Apple switched to the lighting ports a couple years before.

Rating: 1 Votes

dominiongamma

9 months ago

Hoping planet fitness will be one of the gyms

Rating: 1 Votes

6803390

9 months ago

Awesome, does anybody know which Gym here in London (UK) that will support GymKit?

“Metro reports that the Mansion House Virgin Active gym in London now offers exercise machines that work with Apple’s GymKit feature which lets you sync workout data between the machine and Apple Watch. In the piece, Apple’s fitness chief Jay Blahnik suggests we may see even more GymKit-compatible machines soon…”

Rating: 1 Votes

kildraik

9 months ago

Roll-out is a joke!

Should NOT be limited to just one gym, nor one gym chain.

I don’t ever use machines, but I’d expect my $200/month membership at Equinox to include all technological advances and features FIRST and with partial exclusivity, no matter how useless they are both in practice and progress. Lol!

Plus, if there’s going to be a major demographic to test the tech, it wouldn’t be a facility with “fitness,” in its name... it would be an Equinox.

Rating: 1 Votes