Horizon 7.0 AT Review: A Treadmill I’d Actually Buy

Dimensions/Storability

The Horizon 7.0 AT is about as small as we recommend to most people for running. It’s still fairly sizable at 76” L x 35” W x 67” H. It folds up, though, and shortens the dimensions to 44” long. So, if you need a treadmill that folds when you’re done, this one is a good option.

The Horizon 7.0 AT folds and unfolds easily with hydraulic assistance.

It uses a hydraulic system to support you when folding the deck. To fold, you lift the back of the deck and push it up until it locks into place. To unfold, you push your foot against the bar near the floor under the deck, push the deck up slightly, and then lower it until you feel the “featherlight folding” mechanism kick in and lower the deck to the floor on its own.

The 7.0 AT is pretty substantial in size and weight, yet fairly easy to fold and move around, considering it weighs 277 lbs. When folded, you tip it back to move it. The wheels are fairly small, which makes it a little more challenging to move across our thick gym mats and probably thick carpeting. It isn’t hard to move a few feet here or there, though.

It has a pretty low step-up height of 9.5” from the floor to the side rails. At the full incline, the deck is 15” high. I would add this height to your height in inches to be sure you have a tall enough ceiling to use the 7.0 AT. Considering most ceilings are at least 9 feet high, you shouldn’t have to worry about not having a tall enough ceiling to use this treadmill.

Factoring in the Horizon 7.0 AT’s incline and step-up height, the minimum ceiling height should be 8.5’ for a 6’ runner.

If you have a low ceiling, you might want to factor in these dimensions. It’s important when buying any treadmill to have enough head clearance and floor space to use it safely.

Onboard Workouts & Apps

The 7.0 AT is simple and one of the few treadmills that don’t have a touchscreen or subscription training content available to stream from the treadmill. If you’re looking for a treadmill that offers subscription content, we have a long list of recommendations. If you’re looking for a standard workout experience, the 7.0 AT is for that.

It does connect to devices, third-party apps, and heart rate monitors. We’ve encountered a few minor issues with the connectivity, but here’s what you can expect on the 7.0 AT.

Onboard Workout Programs

Quickly select the perfect onboard workout with the light indicator under each program label.

This treadmill comes with eight standard workout programs. These include manual, fat burn, calorie, distance, target heart rate, hill climb, 5k, and custom. Most of these programs have preset incline and speed settings for the 7.0 AT to adjust throughout your workout.

You can customize some of these settings by setting time goals depending on how long you want your workout to be. Manual mode is where you adjust the incline and speed as you go and run or walk for as long as you want.

On the treadmill, you can track your estimated calories burned, distance, heart rate, incline, speed, and time.

Navigating the workout programs isn’t as seamless as using a touchscreen. The small icons displaying the different programs aren’t buttons to push to select the program. Instead, there is a round button to select your user profile, with five profiles to choose from. Once you input your weight, you can turn the button to select which workout program you want to use.

The round button and other controls are used to select and program an onboard workout.

Connectivity

For a simple treadmill, the Horizon 7.0 AT connects to a lot of things. The biggest update to this model is the addition of Apple Gymkit. This feature has technology that lets you hover your Apple or Galaxy watch over the small icon on the console to the right of the fan.

As I said, my Gen 3 Apple Watch pairs easily with the 7.0 AT. I can’t connect my watch to most equipment, so having the Gymkit on the 7.0 AT is nice for Apple and Galaxy users. Once I hover my watch, there’s a small beep, and then my watch will ask to start an indoor run or indoor walk. Once I pick the activity, I start the treadmill and see my heart rate on the treadmill, along with the other workout metrics.

The Horizon 7.0 AT connects to Apple watches, like my Gen 3 model.

The 7.0 AT also comes with a heart rate chest strap monitor. To connect this or your other compatible tracker like a Garmin watch, you have to hold down the Bluetooth icon on the treadmill until the LCD screen says “Heart Rate Monitor Only.”

You can also pair your device to the speakers to play content through them and use third-party training apps such as Zwift, Peloton, Kinomap, Fitscope, Fitbit, Apple Health, Google Fit, and AtZone.

In some of the apps, like Zwift, AtZone, and Peloton, you can see the treadmill metrics in real-time in the app on your device. In others like Apple Health and Fitbit, you can send your workouts to these apps to save your workout history.

The Zwift app is free for runners and pairs with the Horizon 7.0 AT for even more training options.

So, if you like trainer-led content or want to use one of the fitness apps above, you can with your device on the 7.0 AT. These are completely optional to use.

One thing we noticed is that when you pair a heart rate monitor using the heart rate monitor-only mode on the treadmill, you can’t pair the treadmill with the compatible training apps. It is one or the other with this feature, unfortunately. You can still pair your phone to the treadmill’s speakers with your heart rate monitor connected, though.

I can pair my Apple Watch using Gymkit and pair these apps with the 7.0 AT, however. So, the addition of Gymkit has made the 7.0 AT a little more seamless to use for Apple Watch users rather than those with Garmins. I did notice my watch would sometimes disconnect randomly from the treadmill, but it’s really easy to reconnect it.

Maybe a future version of this treadmill could allow for multiple devices to be paired at once, but for how well-priced, easy-to-use, and tech-compatible the Horizon 7.0 AT is, this is a pretty minor issue. There’s still plenty you can do with this treadmill, and I haven’t even gotten to what it handles physically.

Console

The dated console design doesn’t impede the treadmill’s functionality or performance, even if it isn’t the best looking.

I’ll admit, the Horizon 7.0 isn’t the sleekest treadmill to look at. It’s black, but the stickers it comes with on the console and even the motor hood don’t exactly fit most home aesthetics. It doesn’t even fit mine, and my home is currently filled with toys and a playpen for my crawling baby.

You can probably take off the stickers with a bit of finesse and patience, but they’re on the treadmill so well that we kept ours on in fear of not being able to get them completely off.

Looks aside, the 7.0 AT is easy to use. It has a 7.25” LCD screen and four LED windows that are bright, backlit, and easy to see.

It’s also really functional. There are colored start and stop buttons above the round black button that you use to select your workout program. These start, pause, and end your workout and the treadmill’s belt.

The Horizon 7.0 AT includes speed and incline buttons for conveniently jumping to a specific level.

There are also numbered quick-adjusting buttons on each side of the console for the speed and incline. So, I can press three on the right and five on the left and adjust the 7.0 AT to 3 mph and 5% incline.

The blue wheels and buttons make HIIT workouts easy, allowing you to easily adjust speed and incline on the go.

As convenient as these buttons are to adjust to specific levels quickly, I actually prefer the blue roller dials on the front handles. You roll them forward to increase the speed and incline and roll them back to decrease them. The right adjusts the speed by 0.1 and the incline by 0.5%.

They’re easy to use and well-placed for convenience. There are also pulse grips on the handles to read your heart rate, but connecting a compatible tracker is a good idea for more accurate heart rate tracking.

Although you can connect your device to the 7.0’s speakers to play whatever content through them, they are a little underpowered. Fortunately, this treadmill is really quiet (more on this in a moment), so I can still hear most content even while running. My iPhone speaker is louder in comparison, though.

I was hoping for a little more power from the fan. I still need a floor fan for hard workouts.

The fan is also a little weak. I can only feel the breeze when I hold my hand in front of the vent. If you need to cool off, your best bet is to plug in your own fan.

The cup holders are on either side of the console for your water or whatever you need within reach. These are large, without anything on the front, but I didn’t really experience any shaking of the console, so my large 40-oz HydroJug stayed put, even when I was running.

There is storage for two water bottles, a phone, and a tablet.

There’s, of course, a device rack, actually two, to make streaming from your phone or tablet convenient. The small ledge below the LCD screen is fine, but I prefer using the top rack. It holds my iPhone and should hold a smaller tablet just fine.

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Build Quality

The rear wheels for smooth incline transitions are an example of the thoughtful quality found in the affordable Horizon 7.0 AT Treadmill.

It’s rare to find a treadmill designed to support running for under $1000. It isn’t just its nice price point that makes the Horizon 7.0 AT impressive. The fact that it can go toe-to-toe with higher-end treadmills and even outperform some of them in our testing is very impressive.

One aspect that can indicate a well-built treadmill is the weight limit. The 7.0 holds up to 325 lbs, which is pretty generous considering its compact size. The lifetime frame and motor warranty also point to a great build quality that’s firmly backed by the brand.

Frame

There’s no question that the 7.0 AT was built to handle the higher forces of running.

Now, like I said earlier, the 7.0 AT isn’t the most high-tech or “prettiest” treadmill out there. But its frame is solid and functional. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have an ugly but trusty treadmill than a good-looking one that shakes when I run on it.

The 7.0 is very stable. Nothing feels unsteady or shaky while running. The handles are also within good reach for balance. I think it feels slightly more heavy-duty than the previous version, even though not much has been updated according to the spec list.

Motor

The 7.0 AT’s motor meets our requirements for a running treadmill, supporting about 3 to 7 miles per day.

Although the motor size isn’t listed, from previous versions of the 7.0 that we’ve used, we’ve determined that this treadmill has a 3.0 HP motor. This version doesn’t seem like the motor size has increased but rather improved from the previous model.

The 7.0 AT handles everything we expect it to, especially at its price. It has a 12 mph max speed and a 15% incline. It might not support high mileage running like marathon training, but it should support moderate use of 3-7 ish miles of running per day.

Since walking is lower impact and intensity, the 7.0 can most likely handle more mileage if you are just walking or even walking and running.

The 7.0 AT is perfect for walking, allowing exercisers to conquer their daily step goals.

Horizon’s higher-end treadmills, the 7.8 AT and 7.4 AT, have more motor power and robust builds that we recommend for heavy use of 10+ miles per day.

This is all standard to what we expect from the 7.0. I think the motor has been improved in terms of responsiveness and noise output. In our motor responsiveness test, the 7.0 AT took a little less time to adjust the speed and incline than the previous model.

Horizon makes some of the fastest-adjusting treadmills, so the 7.0 is great for interval training. It only takes about 18 seconds to go from 1 mph up to 12 mph. The incline only takes 16 seconds to go from 0% to the full 15%, too.

The 15% incline and fast incline transitions make this treadmill excellent for hill intervals.

Even the noise output is slightly quieter by a few decibels. Like any motorized treadmill, the 7.0’s noise output increases with its speed, but in our testing, it was around the equivalent of a microwave or clothing dryer.

The Horizon 7.0 AT is one of the quietest treadmills we’ve tested, so it’s a good option if you need a quiet treadmill for your home.

Deck

The Horizon 7.0 AT’s textured running belt measures 20” x 60”.

The Horizon’s deck size is why we consider it to be a compact treadmill for running. It is 20” wide and 60” long. This isn’t the widest deck we see on folding treadmills, but it is wide enough to provide room for various users. It is also long enough to support all running stride lengths.

If you want a treadmill with plenty of room, check out the higher-end models from Horizon, but if you need to save a little space but still want to be able to run, the 7.0 AT is a great option.

The different colored shock absorbers change the cushioning in each zone to create a softer landing zone and firmer push-off zone.

Its deck cushioning, which is the give in the deck when your feet land, is on the softer side of what most treadmills offer, especially in this price range. Even much more expensive treadmills, like the Peloton Tread, have firmer deck cushioning and less give in the deck than the 7.0.

In our testing, we’ve found NordicTrack has the softest cushioning. Horizon is slightly firmer but still fairly soft, while ProForm, Sole, Peloton, and even some commercial brands like Matrix and Life Fitness have firmer-cushioned decks.

If you need a little more forgiving surface to run on because running is a high-impact sport, the 7.0 AT is a good option. It doesn’t feel bouncy or overly cushioned, but it is definitely more comfortable than concrete, which offers no shock absorption.

I like the underfoot feel of this treadmill—it’s so much more forgiving than running outside.

The deck also feels really solid underfoot, which is one of the many reasons why we like this treadmill so much. It’s a great value for what you’re paying for.

Warranty

The solid construction is backed by a lifetime frame and motor warranty, as well as three years for parts and one year for labor. Horizon offers excellent warranties. The lifetime coverage helps instill confidence in the build quality.

One handy person could assemble it themself, but having two people helps to make the process a little smoother.

Should You Buy the Horizon 7.0 AT?

If you haven’t gathered from this review by now that the Horizon 7.0 AT is a great treadmill, here is me telling you it is. It has high-quality construction, a well-powered, responsive, and remarkably quiet motor, and is compact yet accommodates all stride lengths.

If you’re looking for a treadmill that’s well-priced, compact for running, folds up, and simple to use, you should seriously consider the 7.0. In our studio, we have a wide range of treadmills at different prices, and the 7.0 AT is among some of our favorites to use, even over a few premium ones.

It might not support as much use as Horizon’s higher-priced treadmills, but the 7.0 AT held its own in our testing. It feels solid yet comfortable to run on. Plus, it doesn’t have subscription training content blocked behind a paywall to access some of its features, like many treadmills nowadays with touchscreens.

Instead, you can pair training apps like Peloton and Zwift from your device. You can also track your heart rate on the treadmill using the included chest strap or your compatible watch, such as Apple and Galaxy Watches.

While we wish pairing the chest strap or other tracker in addition to pairing one of the compatible third-party apps to the treadmill was possible, this is a very small qualm for a treadmill that doesn’t really have any faults.

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Horizon 7.0 AT Treadmill Q&A / FAQ

Is the Horizon 7.0 AT Treadmill good for running?

The Horizon 7.0 AT is designed for running as a part of Horizon’s studio series. The 7.0 AT has a 3.0 HP motor, a 0 to 15% incline range, a spacious running deck, and a speed range of 0 to 12 mph. It is great for runners who are training daily or need a backup option for their typical outdoor activities.

What is the speed range of the Horizon 7.0 AT Treadmill?

The Horizon 7.0 AT has a speed range of 0 to 12 miles per hour. The roller dial controls make the Horizon 7.0 AT Treadmill a really intuitive treadmill to use and adjust on the fly.

What is the weight capacity of the Horizon 7.0 AT?

The Horizon 7.0 AT supports a maximum user weight capacity of 325 lbs.

Is Horizon a good brand?

Horizon is a great treadmill brand that offers durable home treadmills at a reasonable price. The treadmills have lifetime motor and frame warranties. Horizon prioritizes affordability over high-tech features and sleek aesthetics.

Horizon treadmills do not require a subscription digital fitness platform and do not have touchscreen displays. Yet, Horizon treadmills connect via Bluetooth to many popular training apps. All in all, Horizon is a great treadmill brand that makes quality treadmills within reach of a wider range of budgets.

Is your Horizon 7.0 AT Treadmill review a paid review?

We were not paid for this Horizon 7.0 AT Treadmill review or our other treadmill reviews. We receive treadmills for free from brands or purchase them ourselves. Because we work with all major home treadmill brands like Horizon, NordicTrack, Sole, and ProForm, we keep our reviews as neutral as possible.

We want to ensure that you are matched to the right treadmill for you so you will continue to trust our recommendations and return to our expert resources when you are looking to expand your home gym again.

How do we make money if we aren’t paid for the reviews?

We include affiliate links in each of our reviews. Whenever you make a purchase through one of these links, we are paid a commission. Your cost of purchasing the item is not affected by this process. We appreciate your support and encourage you to use our links if you find our reviews helpful!

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