TL;DR: It mostly works great and I love it, but there are a few minor software deficiencies, it’s very expensive, and the wall installation requirement is annoying. The just-announced Tonal 2 has some improvements but it’s not wildly different from the original.

I have always wanted to build muscle and get more in touch with my body. I’ve tried several different smart strength systems, plus in-person training with trainers, over the past six years. I knew from the first time I set foot in a gym I was not going to be a Gym Guy and going consistently for years did not change my mind. I don’t have a garage to use to put a ton of home gym equipment in. This leaves smart strength systems as the best option for training in a small apartment. I’ve tried almost all the major players in this space, but never the Tonal.

I always wanted a Tonal, but being a renter, the installation requirement plus the high cost put me off. I only have one possible spot in my entire apartment that fit’s Tonal’s installation requirements, so it was a bit of a risk that it would work for me. But I was unsatisfied with every other option, and after learning Tonal has a move service, I bought it anyway. After my first session, I knew immediately it was a keeper. Like anything though, you have to figure out if it’s right for you.

Buying process

Attempting to see a Tonal, and failing

Tonal offers a very nice virtual demo program where you can see how a Tonal actually functions if you aren’t lucky enough to live near a showroom. Tonal also – for reasons I cannot possibly imagine – will not give you a virtual demo of Tonal unless you’re looking to buy a new one. If you’re looking to buy a refurb they politely tell you to buzz off. I had to use another email address and fake name just to get them to talk to me and show me the product I was going to drop $3,500 on (plus $60/mo forever, where the real money is). It’s up to you if you want to fib and say you’re gonna buy new to get a demo – I did (sorry!).

Checkout & post-sales form

Checkout is easy. I had a note from my doctor for this, but you can now use TrueMed to use FSA/HSA funds for your Tonal purchase, which drops the real price significantly. Stupidly, I didn’t notice there was also a $250 offer on my United Chase card before I bought my machine, so I lost out on that – learn from my mistake and check your credit card offers first.

After checkout, you’ll need to fill out a form and take photos of your wall so someone can review your Tonal installation. If you have no idea what’s in your walls, you will want to try to find out.

The joys of hammering stuff into your walls

About two weeks later, the Tonal installers arrived with the Tonal. The initial spot I picked was a half-wall (I have 18ft ceilings). The installer looked at the wall, gently pushed on it, and it wobbled quite a bit. He said he wouldn’t recommend installing it there, so he installed it on the opposite wall. I didn’t have any other eligible walls, and it seemed fine. I technically can’t extend one of the arms all the way out to the side, but this has never been an issue. The installers were fantastic: very professional, and done very quickly considering I had steel studs.

I didn’t tell my landlord. Don’t snitch on me please. 😉

Unboxing

I bought a refurbished Tonal, and the setup process was a bit janky – the machine was asking me to “reactivate” my subscription and I got an email with a code I never needed. I also had to re-pair the accessories. Aside from those little bumps, I was up and running in five minutes by just powering through and hitting OK a lot (with one exception – more on that later). I consider that more than fair for saving $1,000 on the price of the machine.

Working out with Tonal

Getting started

Anyone with a smart weight machine of any kind knows you have to adjust. Tonal has a “calibration class” that you’re supposed to take first to dial in your weight recommendations and learn the machine’s method. The intro class was a bit janky but it worked fine. It really doesn’t want you getting position early, but in most workouts, the Tonal doesn’t care when you get into position or even turn the weight on. I like that flexibility, but the intro class is very strict and annoying in that regard.

The strength recommendations it provided were OK. My strength score went down almost immediately because I got sick like a week after I got the Tonal, and I’m still trying to climb back up to my previous score (it has never come back up to this point!). Once you’re done with the calibration class, you’re free to start your Tonal journey any way you see fit.

I did some Googling on Tonal’s trainers and ended up picking a barbell class with coach Tim Landico, who is still my favorite trainer for his fun personality. Less fun was the fact that I picked an “Advanced” class.

Tonal says advanced and means it

According to Tonal, I’m slightly above average in strength for my age and gender group. If Tonal recorded Vo2 max, I would probably be in the bottom 10%. My Apple Watch nags me periodically to remind me I have the lung capacity of an old smoker. This has been a problem on every strength training platform, but most with Tonal – no class I’ve been in programs rest breaks longer than a few seconds to get some water and change the handle configruation. Of course, you can just pause the class, but this can turn a 35 minute workout into a 45 to 60 minute workout for me depending on how hard I’m getting hit.

And you will get hit in an Advanced class, even a short one. I saw some Reddit posts from people concerned they wouldn’t get a real workout on Tonal with the 200lb weight limit and I promise you that unless you are a very serious athlete / powerlifter who refuses to do split movements, you’ll be challenged more than enough.

I want do every lift at the recommended (read: heavy) weight to build muscle. I would need to manually drop the weight a lot if I didn’t take breaks to get my heart rate down from 190. In addition to the cardio stress, advanced classes can also require a lot of balance, flexibility, or core endurance I frankly do not have. Lesson learned! I started Big Lift Energy, another program by Coach Tim, that was much more my speed. I still need to take frequent rest breaks to breathe but after the first class I knew it would be manageable.

Software experience

Tonal’s software is ahead of everyone else in the industry by a mile. If there is one takeaway from my experience, it’s this. The hardware is great, but many at-home strength companies sell great hardware. Only Tonal has great software.

Even before I started a class, I was happy to see that you can filter classes and programs (a fixed group of classes meant to be taken in order) in over a dozen different ways. This is how I found the Big Lift energy class – I wanted to see what Beginner programs Tim had, and this was the one. Tonal’s dashboard also has several Netflix-like carousels of classes that recommend different types of classes based on your goals and workout history.

When starting the class, I was alerted to a new feature in Tonal – Side View. You can use your phone to get a side view of yourself working out, and Tonal can use this to provide automatic form feedback in addition for a video for you to review. Unfortunately, I can’t use Side View because the room I’m in is so small I can’t get the camera far enough away. It’s a fantastic idea and I hope that one day I’ll live somewhere I can use it (or Tonal releases a wide angle adapter).

Tonal also strongly recommends using the “spotter mode”, which will release the weight if you’re at the bottom of the movement too long. I may be using this wrong, but I don’t like it. During burnout workouts, the coach will tell you to let it reduce your weight so you can finish the burnout reps, but there’s also a time limit, so it you wait five seconds for spotter mode to take the weight off (plus the amount of time it takes spotter mode to activate). I mostly stopped trying to use this and don’t rely on it, but it doesn’t negatively impact the experience in any way.

Workout experience

During my workouts, everything works as expected. Coaches provide clear instruction and sometimes some personality (though there’s usually not much free time for that!), weight gradually ramps up and down when being added, the adjustable arms provide a wide variety of positions, and you can skip backwards and forwards in both time and movement units (ex. skip this set of rows, skip cooldown). There’s an audio mixer to control the volume of the coach, music, and system noises which is fantastic. Programs help me stay focused and reduce the friction to just start a workout, and I love not needing to worry about plates.

There are also some workout-related annoyances I hope are fixed. When working out I have a really hard time focusing on what the trainer is saying to help with form – I can be working out or listening, not both. Sometimes, it’s not clear to me exactly what the coach is doing from the video and what I can hear alone – I would appreciate more angles of the movement or some other resource to help with form. Getting good form form a machine is very difficult and Tonal relies very heavily on their automated feedback, which is usually accurate but only works on obvious issues (too close to machine, uneven lifting on barbell, not standing far enough away etc). I’m not a training expert but a lot of issues come from stuff like your back not being straight or leaning the wrong way, which no machine can detect automatically.

One of my major software-related gripes with Tonal is the weight recommendation system. Weight recommendations are fine but aren’t always right, and there aren’t tools to help customize the weight. Changing the weight in a class only affects that specific weight, so if you want to drop something by 20% you need to mental math each movement and remember to adjust it before the movement starts. I would be willing to challenge myself with longer workouts more if during the workout I could drop all the weight going forward by 10%. I hope tonal makes the “recovery mode” option expanded – I would love to say “I’m kinda tired, take it down a little bit going forward” during a workout.

As of writing, I’ve logged 50 workouts with Tonal and am very happy with it. I did have one other big issue, though.

Using that three-year warranty

After coming back from a weekend vacation, ready to get back on the grind, I noticed the ends of the arms drooping a few inches. I turned on Tonal and got an error dialog that spun for a bit as the machine periodically made noises. I called support, they opened an email ticket, and I was promptly told to prepare for a replacement unit. Tonal scheduled the installers to come back with a new unit and take the old one, and in two weeks, I was back in action. This was annoying, but again – I don’t regret buying the refurb and saving $1,000.

Conclusion

Despite a few issues, I like my Tonal a lot and would recommend it to others that want a smart strength machine and have a place to put it. The polished software experience and solid hardware makes strength training at home easier than any other device I’ve tried.

Conclusion Part 2: Tonal 2

I waited so long to post this Tonal announced Tonal 2. It has some improvements I would love, but I’m waiting to hear details on the upgrade program (I assume it will not be cheap, but I really want the better speakers and smart view).

Feedback Grab Bag

There’s a lot more to highlight that I didn’t know how to fit in above.

The Good

• You can build your own programs pretty easily. You only set the movements, reps, and configure the settings for each movement (if it’s a warmup set, spotter mode, and what lifting mode is used – normal, burnout, chains, or smart flex). Tonal still controls the amount of weight.
• You can workout with a partner, but I’ve never used this. My partners have all been technology-averse, ironically.
• The mobile apps can pull in data from Apple Health to get estimates of your muscle fatigue from non-Tonal activities like cycling. I don’t think this has ever affected anything, though I appreciate that Tonal is at least trying to integrate with the wider HealthKit ecosystem – nobody is going to move their body exclusively on one device.
• I don’t use this, but if you like scheduling your programmed workouts on days of the week, Tonal will do that for you.
• Tonal gamified the app with fun achievements and a very nice-looking calendar widget that shows your streak; I like this type of thing and it does help motivate me.
• There’s also a “Goal Progress” widget in beta that will show you a big circle that fills as you complete your goals. I chose “Muscle growth” as my goal, so the circle is filled with volume of weight.
• The device and app have a tab where you can see all the movements you can do, filter them, and you can just pick one to do right there. I love doing this when I finished a workout but feel like I have a little left in the tank.
• You can use HSA/FSA funds on the Tonal now through TrueMed.
• There are bodyweight classes for when you’re traveling

The Bad

• The Strength Score system seems a bit janky, and I try to ignore it (but can’t). This might be because I started with advanced classes, got sick and took a month off, then mostly stuck to beginner classes, but still – it shouldn’t go down when I’m working out more than I did before. It’s been trending up again but it’s still below peak despite multiple PRs.
• I stick with beginner/a few intermediate classes not because I can’t do the actual strength movements, but because I can’t do the unweighted accessory work (ex: a side plank with leg lifts in between hitting PRs with little rest), which is frustrating as there’s a much wider selection of intermediate/advanced classes but I don’t want to skip stretching or core work entirely.
• If you are the type of person that cares about leaderboards, don’t, because there’s a lot of cheaters. You can turn off the leaderboard though.
• There are a lot of classes but not enough programs, particularly Tim programs. The people demand Tim!
• There is a camera in the Tonal – I have no idea what it’s for, it’s never come up. According to the internet it’s used in some movements as an additional front view when you’re using Smart View (which I can’t use).
• No Tidal music (there are dozens of us! Dozens!) or Bluetooth audio. Tonal please just let me play my own music. Also, the speakers are not great and there’s no audio out either.
• No public API and no data export. Your data is locked in forever, except what gets exported to Apple Health or Strava. This is consumer-hostile product design I’ve found is common with “luxury” brands (8Sleep also does this).
• The Tonal support website stinks – painfully slow to load and very janky.

The Unavoidable

A few limitations of Tonal’s hardware are annoying.

• With some movements, you need to face away from Tonal, so you can’t watch the coach as you work out.
• Installing on a stud means you don’t have full control where it goes. I would have loved to install mine like six inches to the left.
• Being two cable arms attached to the wall, there’s many movements Tonal just can’t do. I’ve seen some complaints a lot of lower body work is just variations on the squat. This doesn’t bother me a lot, but if you need tons of variety, you’ve been warned. The Vitruvian, for example, gets around this by including legs cuffs so you can do weighted leg raises and so son (I hated the leg cuffs so this doesn’t bother me).
• When doing a few movements like an overhead dumbbell press, the cables will rub on your arms/shoulders. An article Tonal has about this problem means this isn’t just a me problem. The article is basically useless other than the reminder that the arm positioning is only recommended and not required.
• According to Reddit, repairs to Tonal devices out of warranty are a few hundred bucks minimum. Cables are consumable – they never last forever – so factor that into your price considerations.