Good news if you’ve got a Samsung Smart TV, and especially if you’re spending too much time on the couch watching it.
Earlier this week, Samsung launched free, at-home access to six different health and wellness apps, including barre3, Calm, Echelon, Fitplan, Jillian Michaels Fitness and obé. The partnerships were already planned for a Samsung Health drop later in the year (which will feature an expanded suite of fitness apps), but in line with many other wellness services that have either arrived early or waived fees in order to help quarantined folks sweat, Samsung felt compelled to make the apps available a few months sooner.
All told, the apps include 250 different instructive videos and over 5,000 hours of content. The library’s pretty diverse, too; Fitplan features training sessions guided by familiar faces like Alex Rodriguez or Christian McCaffrey, obé is sort of like Peloton for HIIT. Calm can help you wind down after another long WFH.
We’re fans of this integration. Through a purely logistical lens, it’s just an efficient way to leverage a large monitor for training. Following along to a workout with a laptop is a bear; I’ll usually have to shift it from a stool, to a shelf, then down to the floor, depending on whether I’m doing squats, plyometric jumps or mat work. Consider the success of an at-home fitness apparatus like The Mirror.
But considered more broadly, this is the direction fitness is heading. Those prognosticating doomsday for gyms and ClassPass are getting ahead of themselves. But it’s plausible that in a post-COVID world exercisers will want to retain their home fitness routines, or at least continue to have the option. A TV that can readily queue up high-quality sessions (which still, importantly, contain elements of group fitness) could be a game changer.
Subscribe here for our free daily newsletter.
Whether you’re looking to get into shape, or just get out of a funk, The Charge has got you covered. Sign up for our new wellness newsletter today.
