Now, There’s a Mirror That Beams Live Fitness Classes Into Your Home
From boutique fitness studios to at-home equipment and online streaming services, today’s workout options are seemingly limitless. But what’s out there for the time—and space—strapped New Yorker who doesn’t want to sacrifice on quality? “After getting pregnant, I found myself having a harder and harder time getting to my own studio,” says Brynn Putnam, a former New York City Ballet dancer and founder of Manhattan’s Refine Method. “I started thinking about buying equipment, but putting a bike in my living room was not the right fit for my [home] life, and there’s just no interaction or engagement with the apps [offered today].”
Such fitness frustrations led the Harvard graduate to dream up Mirror—a sleek full-length reflective surface, which doubles as the wellness industry’s most game-changing device yet: When turned on, a virtual trainer appears on screen and, via an embedded camera and microphone, helps you through the day’s task, from a strengthening session to HIIT to boxing.
If it sounds like the kind of invention that filled ’80s movies’ visions of the future, it’s not so far off. On a recent evening, two delivery men carried the 70-pound box up four flights of stairs to my apartment, installed the system, and left me, just 30 minutes later, with the Mirror mounted on my wall. While I may have usually turned on an episode of Maniac or perused The RealReal until falling asleep, that night I promptly connected the system to my iPhone through Wi-Fi and began answering the introductory questionnaire: “What’s your fitness level?” (Intermediate.) “What are your goals?” (De-stress and improve definition.) “What activities do you enjoy?” (Barre, Pilates, stretch, and yoga.) Based on my answers, the app’s home page recommended a handful of low-impact 15, 30, 45, and 60-minute group classes to me. (One-on-one sessions, which offer real-time communication with one of Mirror’s eight trainers, are available for an additional cost.)
More notable than the library’s hundreds of classes, however, is the system’s cutting-edge ability to know what its users need and when. “The mirror’s algorithm will be feeding you personalizations throughout the class,” explains Putnam of the custom text- and video-based modifications, which filter onto screens during workouts. There’s the competitive layer, which encourages a user (who is wearing the system’s heart rate monitor) to pick up the pace depending on his or her individualized target—“It’s you versus your best self,” she adds—and then there are the visual adjustments for those with profiles that mention injuries. “If you go to a class in real life, it can be embarrassing to be called out in a group of 50 people,” she says. “Here, you can stay a part of the class, while doing an exercise that’s personalized for your body.”
Above all, it’s a system that encourages users to venture out of their comfort zones: “People have increased the variety of their interests—when they joined they said they wanted to do yoga or Pilates and then they end up doing three or four things,” says Putnam. “They’re being really brave.” It’s a realization that I can attest to firsthand: Would I typically spend my afterwork hours hooking, jabbing, and punching? Definitely not. But that night, in the comfort of my own home, I took my very first boxing class—and I felt all the stronger because of it.
