After the huge pandemic success of its luxury equipment equipped with screens and headphones to follow the fitness instructors remotely, Peloton suspended production and the CEO was forced to resign. But that’s not the end of connected fitness
She became the symbol of how the intertwining of technology and pandemic had changed our lives. Now Pelotonthe American company that produces hyper-connected home fitness equipment (with its social network), is becoming the symbol of the return to the pre-pandemic era. Founded in 2011 with the aim of using technology to give people with little time the opportunity to follow from home, as if they were in the gym, spinning courses, high intensity indoor cycling, Peloton had been hugely successful in the Anglo-Saxon world during the first year of the epidemic, when the risk of contagion has made it dangerous (or forbidden) to physically attend gyms. So much so that its factories were no longer able to keep up with the requests for bikes and treadmills that cost around two thousand euros (and often even more).
The idea behind it is relatively simple: luxury equipment with screens and headphones with microphone that allow you to follow the fitness instructors and interact with them, following customizable courses and classes (in which you exercise together with people who stay in their homes even thousands of kilometers away) in a specific social network which can be accessed by paying a monthly subscription of around 70 euros. One of his strengths was that of having attracted people who do not normally go to gyms, either due to lack of time or because they were afraid of face-to-face confrontation with other users.
The pandemic had made Peloton’s services particularly popular and many were willing to bet it would forever change the way we do fitness. Not so: with the arrival of vaccines and the return to social life, users – says Recode – have stopped buying and using sports equipment from home. After losing $ 439 million in the last quarter, Peloton has suspended production of its bicycles and treadmills to cut costs. And, Tuesday, writes Recode again, «announced that will lay off 2,800 people, canceling his plans for a new $ 400 million factory in Ohio, and that its CEO, John Foley, will step down. ” He will be replaced by former Spotify CEO Barry McCarthy.
Peloton is the most illustrious victim of a general …….
