Why I Won't Be Getting an AI Home Gym

I've been getting relentless Instagram ads for AI-powered home gyms lately. You've probably seen them, too—sleek wall-mounted screens with impossibly toned instructors, testimonials promising "the future of fitness," and before-and-after transformations that make it all look effortless.

The smart home gym equipment market is booming. According to Business Wire, the industry was valued at $3.2 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $4 billion by 2030. The numbers show plenty of people are investing in fitness technology that offers personalized, convenient, and effective home workouts. Fitness is yet another way to feed the AI beast, transforming boring old equipment into highly sophisticated systems capable of delivering real-time feedback, tracking performance, and adjusting workouts to each user's needs. It all sounds impressive—revolutionary, even. But here's the thing about fitness trends: It takes a lot more than the latest technology to make them stick.

After months of watching these ads follow me around the internet, I got curious enough to actually dig into what these things are and whether they're worth the hype, and if the math really adds up for most people.

Fitness trends rarely have staying power

Whatever your fitness goal is, the way to get it done is going to be time-tested and probably not too glamorous. Look at Tae Bo, Zumba, shake weights, even the world of Crossfit—most fitness fads don't have staying power once the novelty wears off. 

Sure, exercise science evolves, but not nearly as fast as whatever trendy gadget cycles through the cultural zeitgeist. In this way, we see “fitness” get reduced to a consumer product—something to be purchased, used briefly, and then tossed aside when something shinier comes along. In 2025, spin classes are out, while Pilates and strength training are in, and that Bowflex is probably collecting dust in your mom’s basement. 

In fact, in 2024 both Bowflex and American Home Fitness, two companies that bet big on the home fitness boom, filed for bankruptcy. In more recent history, Peloton once seemed unstoppable. Now, Peloton's revenue declined 2.8% in 2024 to $2.71 billion, marking its third consecutive year of declining revenue. What was once a cultural phenomenon now struggles to retain members and justify its premium pricing.

For something to stick in fitness, three questions matter: Is it affordable? Does it work? Will you personally keep coming back to it?

AI home gyms might work, and you might keep coming back, but that first question is where things get complicated.

What exactly is an AI home gym?

AI home gyms are digital fitness systems that combine hardware with software to create a personalized workout experience at home. The most well-known is probably Tonal, but there's also Tempo, Speediance, Amp, and others.

Here's how they typically work: Tonal, for instance, is a wall-mounted unit about the size of a large TV that uses electromagnetic resistance instead of traditional weights. You pull cables attached to adjustable arms, and the system can provide up to 200 pounds of resistance digitally. Built-in cameras and sensors track your movements, and the AI adjusts the weight in real-time based on your form and performance. A screen displays instructors leading classes, tracks your reps and sets, and the system learns your strength patterns over time to suggest when you should increase weight or modify exercises.

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

The benefits of an AI-powered home gym

Smart home gyms do offer legitimate benefits, including compact convenience, personalization, time savings, structured workouts, and potentially better injury prevention through form 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've seen more of these continue to pop up not only in full training stations, but also in specific equipment, like cable machines, dumbbells, and sometimes a combination of both. They'll never have the longevity of weight plates or barbells, but there is an audience for them."

According to Guevera, these systems appeal to "those people who need guidance and want a done-for-you system where they can choose on-demand workouts where they can just follow along and not have to think about what to do for their workout.”

There is an audience for these products, just as there's an audience for Peloton bikes and high-end boutique fitness studios. But to me, the relevant question isn't whether they work for some people—it's whether they're the revolutionary solution to home fitness they're marketed as, or just another expensive piece of equipment that most people will use enthusiastically for a few months before the novelty wears off.

Still, another Tonal user told me that comparing these AI systems to a Bowflex machine from the 1990s is like comparing a surgical robot to using a rusty scalpel. But this analogy assumes your body is a machine where the logic of “endless innovation” holds up. A smart gym isn’t exactly a medical solution. It's an accessory, a luxury good that depends on who can afford it. I don’t think the problem with working out at home has never been that we lacked sophisticated enough technology. The problem is that working out is hard, consistency is harder, and no amount of AI can fundamentally change that human reality. There are some things you just can’t hack. 

Running the numbers on an AI home gym

There are hefty upfront costs for these products. Take Tonal, one of the leading AI home gym systems. It's around $4,300 for the unit itself, $295+ for mandatory professional installation, plus bundled smart accessories. Then comes the recurring monthly membership fee of around $60 for full access to classes and features. All told, you're looking at roughly $5,300 in the first year, followed by $720 annually for the subscription.

Compare that to traditional gym memberships. According to a 2023 report, the average monthly cost of a gym membership is $58, which works out to about $696 per year. Budget options like Planet Fitness run as low as $15 to $23 per month, or $180 to $276 annually. Even mid-tier gyms like LA Fitness typically cost $40 to 56 per month.

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

Year 1: Tonal costs $5,300. A gym membership costs $600. You're already $4,700 in the hole.

Year 2: You pay $720 for Tonal's subscription. The gym still costs $600. You're now $4,820 behind.

Year 3: Another $720 vs. $600. Now you're $4,940 in deficit.

By Year 5: You've spent $8,180 on Tonal versus $3,000 at a gym.

It would take roughly eight years of consistent use before Tonal becomes cost-competitive with a traditional gym membership. Eight years. That's assuming the hardware doesn't malfunction, the company doesn't go under (remember, Bowflex and Peloton couldn't sustain their models), and you actually use it consistently for nearly a decade.

And the subscription costs are real. Unlike traditional weights that work whether or not you're paying a monthly fee, many digital fitness products require a subscription as long as you want to access workouts. "I've seen some of these companies also go out of business," Guevara says, "so if that happens, you're stuck with a product that doesn't function if their software is not kept up with." We've watched other companies’ subscription traps effectively brick your hardware.

Now, proponents will argue that you save on commute time and costs. Fair enough. But for the Tonal investment to be "worth it" financially, you'd need to use it at least three to four times per week for those eight years straight. If you weren’t driving to a gym you pay $50/month for, are you sure you’ll consistently use your smart gym for years and years once the novelty wears off? 

There’s another unspoken cost to at-home convenience, akin to people who struggle with WFH setups: the absence of gym culture. Don’t underestimate the power of casual human interaction, personal trainers who can physically adjust your form, accountability from workout buddies, the ritual of leaving your house to exercise, or maybe even the silent camaraderie of shared suffering. If you’re like me, that separation between home and workout space is a major psychological boost. 

The bottom line

The best exercise is the one you'll actually keep doing. If you run the numbers and a Tonal makes sense for your budget and workout habits, great. Personally, as AI creeps into every other corner of my life, I find a lot of comfort in my workouts as a rare screen-free activity. 

My gripe with AI home gyms is when they’re marketed as must-have solutions, instead of what they are: luxury goods, something available only to those with disposable income and spare square footage. On a grand scale, given their current costs, AI home gyms look like a passing trend to me. And two years from now, when the next fitness innovation promises to finally solve at-home workouts, I bet someone will write this same article all over again.