Tempo Move is a home gym that uses iPhone cameras for body tracking
The Move uses Face ID and lidar to track body movement, arriving in December.
- Nearly 20 years writing about tech, and over a decade reviewing wearable tech, VR, and AR products and apps
The Tempo Move is a set of weights and a connected processor that uses your iPhone camera for workouts.
Fitness apps that use cameras already exist. Ones that use your phone camera do, too. But the Tempo Move, which specifically uses iPhone lidar to track body movements and workouts, could be a sign of where subscription home fitness heads next.
Tempo's first product, an expensive (and large) home workout system that had its own giant display and tracking cameras, launched in 2020. That large, mirror-like display, with its set of weights, is still being sold as Tempo Studio: It costs nearly $2000, along with a monthly $39 subscription fee. The Tempo Move, which costs $400, is just a set of weights and a small dock that connects with your phone, sending the workouts to a nearby TV.
The Tempo Move still needs a monthly $39 subscription price, but shaving the cost of the equipment way down could make the concept far more appealing. It's also a lot less room-demanding, from the demo I saw of the equipment over a Zoom call. The set comes with 50 pounds of dumbbell weights inside a corner table-sized console that just looks like regular furniture.
The iPhone docks on top (there's also HDMI to output to a TV).
The workouts recognize body movement through Apple's iPhones that use infrared technology: front-facing Face ID-equipped iPhones (from the XR/XS onwards), with support for rear lidar on the iPhone 12 Pro and 13 Pro after that. According to Tempo, the accuracy and tracking range will improve when using the lidar-equipped iPhone Pro models.
Amazon's Halo subscription fitness services uses phone cameras to measure body fat composition and movement, but video-based subscription workouts like Apple Fitness Plus and Amazon's upcoming service don't use cameras to track specific body movement yet.
The workouts focus on classes and training, and have yoga, cardio and strength training focus, along with dumbbell workouts (barbell and kettlebells are coming in 2022). If you're looking for a connected weight workout system that can track and coach movement, it seems like an intriguing option. We haven't tested it yet, though: Stay tuned for a review later this year when we get one.