by Peloton announced in an email on Monday that it’ll be ditching support for Apple Watch’s GymKit from February 27: instead, it’ll be tracking your health and well-being metrics within its own Peloton app.
Peloton One-Tap tracking, as its replacement is called, doesn’t mean your Peloton workouts will need additional manual tracking to register in Apple Health. GymKit is the Apple Watch’s protocol allowing the Watch to connect directly to large gym equipment like exercise bikes and treadmills: instead, the device will connect via the Peloton app, and collect your workout data through the app.
Peloton users who originally purchased a Peloton Bike Plus for the advertised Apple Watch GymKit integration might be feeling a little blue, but despite GymKit integration being a key focus of the more affordable Bike+ on launch, there’s a good chance it won’t make much of a difference to your day-to-day.
It’s not the first time the Peloton Bike Plus has lost a feature, with the in-class video calling functionality for friends being removed in 2022 for the Bike Plus, Bike, and Peloton Tread models.
Peloton also famously removed the Just Run feature on its treadmill for users without a Peloton subscription but replaced it after an outcry.
Analysis: What does this mean for Peloton / Apple Watch users?
Aside from potentially being a little sore about the removal of a feature, your day-to-day usage is unlikely to change much.
Some users have complained about GymKit being a little unreliable on forums like Reddit, while others say the same about One-Tap. However, moving away from Apple’s API shouldn’t have any adverse effect on transferring data to Peloton for Apple Watch users.
You may find Apple Health, Apple’s place for all of your fitness and health data, only receives a subset of data, but all your stats will still live in your Peloton account.
In many ways, it’s difficult to judge just how successful GymKit has been since it arrived in October 2017. The API has often felt underused, and while Peloton made a big deal out of its inclusion with the Bike Plus, many other manufacturers, and many gyms, seemingly chose not to upgrade their hardware or software to take advantage of it.
The Peloton app was redesigned last year to be used on and off the company’s own-branded machine, including three new paid subscription tiers of various levels.
