Peloton has confirmed that it recently acquired a smart wearables company, leading some to believe that a Peloton-made smartwatch may be coming in the near future. Peloton has been in the fitness world since its founding in 2012, and since then, it's quickly become one of the most recognizable names in the entire niche. Peloton is most well-known for its smart bikes and treadmills, and in a world where people are still staying home and social-distancing, Peloton's home workout equipment has had an opportunity to shine like never before.
While the hardware of Peloton's bikes and treadmills are commendable on their own, what makes Peloton really stand out is the whole experience of using its products. Peloton's equipment comes with large touchscreens for following live and on-demand workout routines, the Peloton mobile app has guided exercises for other types of workouts, and users can also use the app for viewing detailed breakdowns of all of their activity.
Now that Peloton has mastered the art of smart bikes and treadmills, the company could be looking to enter the smartwatch market next. As reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by Peloton, the fitness company recently made three different acquisitions — including Atlas Wearables which it purchased in late 2020. Atlas Wearables has been around since 2014, with the company getting started on Indiegogo and launching two smart fitness wearables since then. The Atlas Wristband was considerably large and bulky compared to most fitness trackers of its time, but it was also a lot more advanced. Utilizing a variety of sensors and a library of known workouts, the Atlast Wristband could accurately track push-ups, crunches, dumbbell bicep curls, and more. It never caught on to the masses the way Fibtits or the Apple Watch did, but the tech behind the product was really promising.
What To Expect From a Peloton Smartwatch
Now that Peloton owns Atlas Wearables and all the tech that comes with it, it's easy to assume that Peloton will create its own smartwatch/smart fitness band. While there's no confirmation of that quite yet, a smart wearable of some sort makes a lot of sense within the current Peloton ecosystem. Peloton already has the gym equipment, guided workouts, and companion app — a smartwatch could tie all of that together and act as the hub for someone's Peloton experience.
As for what features a Peloton smartwatch could bring to the table, there's a lot to speculate. Basic step/calorie tracking would be a given, as would a heart-rate sensor. It's also easy to imagine a Peloton smartwatch taking advantage of the Atlas Wristband's best feature, offering highly-accurate workout tracking for exercises that don't take place on its bikes/treadmills. And when someone is doing a workout on one of those machines, a Peloton smartwatch could offer even deeper integration than the Peloton Apple Watch app currently does.
When thinking about a Peloton smartwatch, integration would really be the key driving force behind it. Apple's deep tie-in between the Apple Watch and Apple Fitness+ has already proven to be a big success, and if Peloton can offer a similar (but more robust) experience with a smartwatch of its own, it's hard to imagine that failing.
Source: Bloomberg