Tonal Smart Home Gym Review – 2024

With countless home cardio equipment on the market, I think it’s great to see strength training becoming more accessible as well. Now, what if I told you that you could get the gym experience without having to wait for a machine or even rack your own weight? How about having your own personal trainer and working out whenever you want? The Tonal Smart Home Gym does all of this in the comfort of your own home. Impressed? So am I.

Check Best Price

Best Workout Mirror Award:

The Tonal has been given the award of the best overall workout mirror on on our list of best workout mirrors. We love the functionality and all the capabilities that the Tonal offers in a small amount of space. We also really enjoy the content that Tonal offers and includes with a membership.

What Is the Tonal Smart Home Gym?

Tonal Smart Home Gym is a complete home gym in one highly intelligent system that mounts to your wall. Tonal packs all the equipment you’ll find at the gym, in a sleek design that takes up a fraction of the space. It features a touchscreen and uses digital, magnetic weights and smart technology that corrects your form, tracks your progress, and adjusts your weights to work for you and your fitness goals. Think of it as your own personal trainer and personalized machine. You can create your custom routines with your favorite exercises or follow along with one of Tonal’s several coaches in countless guided workouts.

Who Is the Tonal Smart Gym For:

An individual or family with limited space who wants a guided strength workout at home. Intermediates and beginners to fitness and/or strength training who want to skip the gym and personal trainer for the same experience at home. Cardio fitness enthusiasts who want to add personalized strength training to their regime.

Review of the Tonal Home Gym

Functionality As A “Complete Home Gym”

The Tonal Smart Home Gym definitely saves space and has several high quality features as well as unlimited amounts of workouts. With this level of technology, I’d say it replaces a gym membership and more. Tonal allows you to complete over 170 exercises, so you will definitely get a great workout at home.

If you’re new to lifting weights, you won’t feel lost or unsure about what weight to pick because Tonal does that for you. Even more seasoned weightlifters will appreciate the similarities to the gym that the Tonal Smart Home Gym provides, especially with the advanced weight modes. Lifting up to 200 lbs will work great for most, but advanced lifters, such as body-builders and power-lifters, might not be satisfied with this weight.

The digital weight feels different from traditional weights because of the lack of gravity and momentum, so it may take some getting used to. The weight will most likely seem heavier than your pair of dumbbells, which to a lifter like myself, is humbling for sure.

Some noise can be expected from the plastic on the arms and the amount of weight it allows, so I’m not sure this would be best for apartments or homes with shared walls because the noise could be a problem.

I find the “AI Coach” to be like a personal trainer that you would find in a gym who comes up with training plans and tells you how much weight to lift and what moves to do based on your goals. This is handy, especially if you need some guidance. I enjoy taking fitness classes and appreciate the variety of classes to choose from. Although to me, some of the trainers come across a little scripted and unnatural at times. However, they film new workouts everyday so I’m sure this will change as time goes on.

Training Programs

Guided Workouts
Tonal offers hundreds of classes and adds new ones daily. They are pre-recorded, so taking live classes isn’t an option. You can pick your favorite coaches to lead you through workouts. This makes you feel like you’re taking a class at a fitness studio without having to sign up and be limited to working out at a specific time.

Classes range from under 10 minutes to an hour. I like squeezing in short 5-10 minute ab workouts when I’m short on time or adding them at the end of my workout, so this is a nice feature. Along with traditional strength training, they have several styles of classes like Barre, high intensity, and dance cardio so you can mix up your workout plan.

They even offer multi-week training programs. These types of programs are commonly used in weight lifting and are designed to have you increase your weight each week so you’ll stay challenged and get stronger. You can also customize your workouts and build your own routines. This is great if guided workouts aren’t your thing.

Advanced Weight Modes
Tonal does a great job at making you feel like you’re in the gym with its 4 advanced weight modes. I’m very impressed by these settings and how similar they seem to training in a gym.

The spotter mode is like having someone spot you while in a move by sensing if you’re struggling with a weight. Say you’re squatting with a heavy weight, Tonal will lower the weight so you can complete your squat, and then add the weight back on when you start your next rep.

During high rep sets, the burnout mode will decrease the weight as you go once it senses that you’re struggling. This way you can finish your set and get the most burn possible.

Tonal really did their homework with the chains feature. It replicates the sensation of putting chains on a barbel making the weight get heavier as you pull.

Finally, the eccentric mode will increase the resistance as you release the weight. I really appreciate this feature because it gives you more time under tension which is a proven method to getting the most out of your workouts.

Workout Together
Tonal offers a virtual workout feature where you can exercise with friends and family all across the country on multiple Tonal systems. You can also choose the partner workouts feature to workout with a family member or friend by taking turns doing the movements.

Construction Quality & Durability

Digital Touchscreen
The integrated 24” touchscreen display is where you can select exercises, programs, track your progress, check your form and effort, and follow the Tonal coaches as they guide you through workouts.

Adjustable Arms
On both sides of the screen there are two adjustable arms which allow you to perform upper and lower body exercises. I find this is great to ensure you’ll get a full body workout. The arms rotate, angle up and down, and raise and lower. The handles attach to cables that extend out from the arms. Along with putting on the different handles, I find it very convenient that you only need to adjust the handles for each movement. The system does everything else.

Digital Weight
The patented digital magnetic weight technology lets you ditch the bulky sets of dumbbells and plates. Tonal Smart Home Gym goes up to 200lbs (100lbs per arm). The digital weight increases a pound at a time and adapts to your body’s strength needs. To me, this guarantees you’ll find a weight to work for you.The weight can adjust automatically, or you can select a weight yourself. With the ability to perform over 170 moves on Tonal, you will never be bored with your workouts.

Accessories
For an additional purchase of $495, you can also get smart accessories. These include: smart handles, the smart bar, rope, bench, foam roller and workout mat so you can perform more moves and use all the digital weight’s features. The smart handles and smart bar engage weight wirelessly with just a click of button, for fast and smooth transitions between exercises. In order to get the most out of the system, I highly recommend getting the bundle.

Noise level
Tonal can make a bit of noise due to the plastic on the device and heavier weight it provides.

Controls/Display

Initial Setup
When you first turn on the Tonal Smart Home Gym it asks for you to select your fitness goals and level from the choices on the screen. This is so Tonal can help guide you through your strength journey and recommend workouts and programs that will help achieve these goals. After this, you are taken through a strength assessment of just 4 different strength moves to determine a good baseline weight for every movement the system offers. I really appreciate this feature because it has safety in mind while giving personalized workouts.

AI Trainer
“Coach AI” as Tonal refers to it as, is like having your own personal trainer. The artificial intelligence in this system sets the appropriate weight for you before each movement. Tonal uses 17 sensors that analyze and correct your form. I find it very useful that the AI trainer counts your reps and lets you know when you’ve completed a set, as I often lose count when I workout. Once you get stronger, the AI trainer will adjust your weight the next time you lift.