Late last year, Peloton announced Guide. The set-top system is an effort to reach a broader slice of the market with a lower cost alternative to its line of bikes and treadmills. At $495, the system wasn’t cheap, exactly, running $100 mor than Tempo’s recently announced Move system. The price point was, however, significantly more accessible than even the company’s cheapest piece of hardware.
Five months after the announcement, Guide is now available for purchase – albeit in a different form. The company has made some tweaks to the original offerings, including the reduction of the heart rate band, which had initially been pitched as an essential piece of the package. In doing so, however, Peloton’s managed to shave the price down to $295. Again, “affordability” is the eye of the beholder, especially when you consider that the $13/month content fee is where Peloton makes its real money.
If I had to speculate wildly, I’d say the fact that Bike and Tread sales revenue haven’t maintained the way Peloton had expected/hoped as more gyms reopen compelled the company to find a way to hit a lower price point. The new SKU is, no doubt, designed to entice more content subscribers who have thus far been wary of its hardware prices.
The heart rate monitor hasn’t gone away entirely, however. The $495 SKU may be gone, but you can pick the band up as a standalone for $90 or go for the $545 bundle, which includes the above, along with three sets of dumbbells and a workout mat (that’s probably the closest to the Tempo move, FWIW). There’s also a bigger bundle priced from $935-1,270, if price is less of an issue for Peloton’s cheapest hardware.
The company has, no doubt, been making adjustments to its offerings and product roadmaps amid shakeups they led to the appointment of a new CEO. A prolonged financial slide also led to the reduction of 2,800 jobs across the company. The company denied reports that it was halting production of all of its bike and treadmill products, though (now former) CEO John Foley confirmed adjustments, referring to it as “right-sizing “ production on those products.
In addition to the Guide, Peloton has been rumored to be working on a rowing machine. That product, however, has yet to surface.
