The Fiture mirror wants to improve your at-home workout form

Maybe the pandemic has made you rethink your gym membership, or maybe you just don’t like exercising in front of others. Thankfully, there are many gadgets and connected devices that can help you exercise well at home. However, without proper form guidance, you risk using the wrong muscles for some actions and, worse, you can hurt yourself. That’s why modern devices such as the Tempo Move and Peloton Guide are aimed at watching while exercising and teaching better forms. Launched today, the new Smart Mirror promises to provide “real-time feedback with form modification and feedback on pacing, timing and movement” through its “motion engine technology”. The company is called Future, and the $ 1,495 interactive mirror is just the beginning of its offering.

Like the mirrors owned by NordicTrack Vault Complete and Lululemon, Future has a screen embedded inside the reflective surface. In fact, both Future and Mirror have a 43-inch display, while the former is 68 inches, 12 inches higher. It’s also slightly wider and thicker than the Lululemon gadget, but surprisingly lightweight. The Fiture product, which weighs only 60 pounds, was easy enough for me to lift and travel short distances (but it’s just me bent).

At a recent demo event, I tried some training with the Future Mirror. Approximately 200-400 workouts are available at launch and sessions last 5-60 minutes. They span categories such as strength, HIIT, yoga, boxing, Pilates, ballet, cardios sculpting, and stretching for cool-downs. To use the device and these classes, you will have to pay a monthly fee of $ 39. This is similar to what Lululemon and Peloton charge for hardware. Peloton allows up to 20 user profiles, but Lululemon only supports up to 6 and requires a “minimum commitment for one year”. Future, on the other hand, allows you to enroll up to 7 users in a single membership and subscribe monthly.

Apart from my personal complaints about purchasing hardware that requires a subscription, I can understand that I always charge a recurring fee for services that push new content. Fiture adds new videos every week and states that live classes are underway.

I’m more intrigued by the ability to customize training. Through the companion app, you can choose between three preset durations (5, 10, or 15 minutes), activity type (HIIT or Strength), and difficulty level. The system produces a series of movements such as squats, hip hinges, lunges, presses and raises. All of this can be edited by fine-tuning the duration or number of contacts in each set. You can also add as many exercises as you like from Future’s extensive library of movements. When you’re done, stream your custom class to the mirror.

With custom workouts, the trainer doesn’t guide you through the entire session like pre-recorded ones, but I like the idea that you can create your own target set or superset. More importantly, the device continues to count contacts and monitor the form.

Here are the highlights of the Future system. There is a dashcam in the bottom third, which blends well into the glass it looks like, so the sensor can only be seen at extreme angles. The mirror has a magnetically attached cap that allows you to hide the camera when not in use. Using 4K video captured from the camera and its “motion engine” algorithm, the device can not only count personnel, but also determine their pace. According to Fiture, if you’re flying a rep, you should consider using heavier weights. If the motion is moving too slowly, try something lighter.

The demo used a pair of 8-pound barbells (lighter than the usual 10-15-pounds) with about 12 upright row, front and lateral raises. At the beginning of the set, I speeded up the rep and my pace was reflected on the screen almost at eye level. I slowed down a bit and reached what I thought was the best pace for Future. Reps running at that speed scored higher, but all moves contributed to the total workout.

When I tried another session, including Arnold’s overhead press, I noticed that some of the people in charge weren’t counting. Conveniently, a diagram appeared in the lower right corner of the screen, instructing me to straighten my arms overhead. As I began to pay attention to that part of the move, the system started counting my personnel again.

Fiture also offers a timed set rather than a specific number of contacts. In another session, I sat in a chair pose for a minute, but the mirror started counting seconds when I determined I had sunk low enough and raised my arms high enough. When I gave up in about 58 seconds and stood up, the count stopped.

The mirror can also detect exercises done on the floor, such as hip thrusts, planks, and climbers. I burned about 20 hip thrusts and Future counted everything. I had a hard time monitoring the trainers on the screen when alternating sidebird dogs, but I have problems when following training videos using floorwork.

At the end of every workout, you’ll see an overview of calories burned, time spent, and your location on the app’s leaderboard. Fiture also suggests follow-up videos that are usually stretched for cool downs. Raise your hand and hold it down for a few seconds to automatically start the recommended activity. This is very convenient. I’ve tried this a few times and the camera was very accurate to notice when I raised my arm.

Fiture isn’t touch-enabled, so most of the time you’ll use the companion app, onboard volume buttons, power buttons, or gestures. According to the company, voice control will be introduced, giving you the option to pause your workout, for example. However, at this time, when you launch the video from your phone, the app becomes a mirror remote control, showing play, pause, volume, section skip, fast forward or rewind controls in 15 second increments.

I couldn’t test this in the demo, but Future comes with a heart rate tracker that can be strapped to show cardio performance on the screen. You can also connect your own Bluetooth-enabled heart rate or fitness tracker such as your Apple Watch to show your pulse on the display. So far, Future hasn’t provided a video that uses that information for training tailored to real-time aerobic performance, but said the company is considering that option.

I have to say that the system looks healthy based on the short time with the Fiture mirror. The next day, my buttocks hurt. In some of the brightly lit event spaces, it was a bit difficult to watch the video on the screen, especially when the sun was shining directly on the surface. But in almost every other part of the indoor space, the display was crisp and easy to read. The workout background music and the trainer’s voice were also loud enough to hear.

In the fitness mirror space, Future is a pretty elegant option. Equipment such as resistance bands and weights are not included (you must use your own training or rely on weight training), but motion detection and form guidance are built into the device. This is different from the Lululemon mirror, which requires additional connected weights to count contacts and provide feedback outside the live class. Tempo Move also requires the use of custom color-coded barbells and plates before effectively counting personnel.

Above all, the small footprint of Future is very appealing to someone like me who lives in a small studio. It is also one of the best looking smart mirrors around and comes in 5 colors. But before spending $ 1,500 on the Future Mirror, it’s a good idea to do a little more testing in the real world and wait until you can see if it’s worth the big bucks.