INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Tempo wants to be the Peloton of barbells
The giant upright HD display makes it feel like your personal trainer is right there with you while you compete with others in live and
mat, recovery foam roller, and heartrate monitor.Tempo opens for pre-orders today for $1995, requiring a $250 deposit and $39 monthly
found the in-home convenience, motivational on-screen personal trainers, and the real-time posture corrections gave me the confidence to
lift weights without the fear of injury
in-person classes that cost $100 or more.The idea of democratizing access to trainers is what convinced Eldeeb and the Tempo team to stretch
its initial $1.8 million in seed funding for four years
investors had given up on us
But after an explosion leveled their building, they wound up in a homeless shelter
Eldeeb eventually dropped out of middle school to work in a pizza parlor and help pay the bills
But personal trainers at a local YMCA took him under their wing
He eventually paid his way through a computer science degree at Columbia University by working as a personal trainer to his eventual
co-founder and CTO Josh Augustin
physical therapy wearable while Augustin was building 3D sensors for guiding robot perception
It then worked with trainers to annotate the data to determine what movement patterns were safe and which were dangerous.Gym owners bought
in because it let them track which trainers were actually helping customers improve
The company built up a dataset of over from over 1 million 3D tagged workouts, from hundreds of gyms, overseen by thousands of trainers
screen and black or white armoire can feel a bit daunting
The thing is about six feet tall, though it only takes up as much room as a large chair
It makes efficient use of space, with the barbell and dumbbells racked on the back, an internal shelf for the foam roller and mat, and a
soft-closing cabinet on the front with the rubber-coated weight set
computer-vision fitness assessment to understand your strength and flexibility so it can set base levels for its exercises
If you have an injury it needs to nurse, Tempo connects you to a human personal trainer that helps customize your workout plan
Otherwise, it uses your goals and data to set out a progressive regimen that gets a little tougher each day
you to do the exercises with safe and proper form
of class styles and lengths, ranging from high intensity interval training circuits to isolated sessions focused on particular muscle groups
In each, you watch a near life-size personal trainer doing the routines right in front of you while they demonstrate form and drop
inspirational quotes.Tempo is producing seven live classes per day from its San Francisco studio which you can also watch on-demand
The live trainers can actually see all your data and your mistakes on a dashboard as they lead classes, and can call you out for screwing up
(though you can deactivate this shame mode)
Over time, you build up an immense collection of data on your performance in each work out, excercise, and muscle
Classes are soundtracked with dancey remixes sourced from a partnership with Feed.fm to avoid the royalty issues with original songs that
trying to do a ton and that can leave some rough edges
Classes also fail to include enough stretching to prevent strains, instead devoting the start of classes to warmups that ease you in but
might not protect your muscles well enough
My quads were destroyed after my demo.Tempo still achieves its primary objective: it makes weight lifting accessible
Cables and motors do not last
I want this product to be in your house for 10-plus years
literally just sitting on their couch in front of it.Eldeeb demos TempoIf the software proves to have high retention so people actually
recommend Tempo to friends, the biggest hurdle will be its price
You can buy a couple dumbbells for $50 or get a barbell weight bench for a few hundred
a gym membership, it could still seem like a serious commitment.That feeling is magnified by how all of its equipment and classes and data
can feel a bit overwhelming
The startup might have to spend a fortune on retail establishments that can guide users through their first Tempo experience
By bringing the gym to you and structuring the classes to be as efficient as possible, Tempo not only makes improving your health more
hitting up a budget gym, Tempo might seem needlessly overwrought and expensive
