What you need to know
- The Peloton Bike+ no longer supports GymKit for its Bike Bootcamp classes.
- The integration with Apple Watch will still work for cycling classes.
Owners of the Peloton Bike Plus are losing some functionality with their Apple Watch.
As reported by The Verge, the Peloton Bike+ was the first bike from the company to support GymKit, but some of that functionality is being rolled back. According to the report, the Apple Watch will no longer sync with the device for Bike Bootcamp classes.
Peloton debuted its Bike Plus with a much-desired feature: GymKit support. But now, the company's pulling back some of that functionality. A Peloton spokesperson confirmed to The Verge today that GymKit no longer works with Bike Bootcamp classes and instead will "only be available in cycling classes for now." The spokesperson also said: "Peloton is committed to bringing the GymKit integration to all workouts and disciplines within Apple's terms of service," seemingly suggesting bootcamp workouts didn't fall under those terms.
The Bike Bootcamp classes blend cycling and strength workouts, so it was handy to have GymKit integration. Trying to track this without the integration would require people to start and stop cycling and strength workouts back and forth or use another type of workout to track things at the cost of accuracy.
This change is a disruptive one for users who might have purchased the Bike Plus specifically for its GymKit support. It's the first piece of hardware from the connected fitness company to support GymKit, and the direct Apple Watch integration makes tracking workouts easy, especially during Bike Bootcamp, which fuses cycling and strength exercises. Now, users will have to find a way to track these trickier workouts, like starting a cycling workout, ending it, switching to a strength-training workout, ending it, and so on. People can also try a cross-training workout, but that might not capture the entirety of the workout, either. When paired with the Apple Watch, the Bike Plus also displays users' heart rates on the screen. This is also now gone from bootcamp classes.
It is currently unclear exactly why Peloton had to drop support for GymKit for the specific workout, but hopefully, the company will be able to work with Apple to add the functionality back soon as it has been a major feature for that particular model.
