Question about water rower I'm looking at (Mr. Captain)

[QueBert]

I was looking to get an air bike, but the more research I've done I think I want a rower. The lady likes the looks of the wooden ones, but won't go for the price of most. She found the Mr. Captian on Amazon, I checked it out and there are a bunch of different branded ones that are identical. Googling there's not much in the way of reviews, and I can't dig up what company makes these. $620's pretty cheap for a wooden water rower, but not cheap for something that's rebranded with pretty much just Amazon reviews to go off of. The reviews are overwhelmingly good, but I don't put a whole lot of trust into Amazon reviews when the product's sponsored. Has anyone here used any variation of this? They're all about the same price and seem to come with the exact same accessories.

 

[Viper GTS]

Erg shaped objects.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Rowing/comments/h0c1fa

You should be looking at a Concept 2 if at all possible. Yes, they are $900. But they last forever and have absurd resale value.

Water rower (the brand) is a viable alternative but everything else is not worth looking at.

Viper GTS

 

[QueBert]

Thank you for the information, I kind of suspected as much. I know the Concept 2 is the standard recommendation for rowing machines, but she wants something for aesthetics and that works with Apple Fitness+, and from Googling getting the C2 to communicate with an Apple Watch requires buying more hardware and some fiddling. I think I'll just tell her if she wants a wooden rower to bite the bullet and buy the Life Fitness Row HX Trainer. That's what Apple uses in their rowing videos on Fitness+, so I'm assuming it's good quality, and overpriced too lol.

Would be ironic if the Life Fitness one's the same as the rebraned ones on Amazon just at 3x the price ha.

 

[Viper GTS]

Any willingness on her part to use the Concept 2 logbook? Meaningful data collection is one of the strong points of the Concept 2 ecosystem.

You could still log heart rate data in apple fitness while simultaneously logging rowing specific stuff in Concept 2.

JFC I looked up the Life Fitness. $1500? You could pay scalper prices for a Concept 2 and still be cheaper than that.

I'm up to two of them now I have a Model E I've had about 9 years and I picked up a Dynamic last week because I wanted to try one. I could easily get 100% of my money back out of the Model E right now if not more.

Viper GTS

 

[QueBert]

I'll give it a shot, she's kinda sold on a wooden one, but $900 for the C2 vs $1500 for the LX one will be helpful lol. Did some Googling now and with the Ergdata app the C2 data would integrate with Healthkit. I know she won't care about her 500m split and whatever else rowers focus on. Just whatever Fitness+ displays on the screen, which is pretty basic. Only thing I'm seeing if you're using the workout app on your phone/watch and running Ergdata at the same time it looks like it double logs data. Reddit says to use Ergdata and not start the workout app, but then Fitness+ classes won't work on the iPad. My best bet would be to find someone who has a C2 and uses Fitness+ and ask them a few questions. Last thing I want to do is sell her on something that won't work how she expects it, or will require some workarounds and hassle.

Looks like I have more research to do before I try and explain to her again that the $600 with 300 4-5 star reviews really isn't going to be that great. Assuming she doesn't get impatient and just order the $600 one off Amazon, maybe she already did today ha.

I will point her to this thread, appreciate your helping.

 

[QueBert]

LOL, well she did go read on the Concept and it doesn't integrate with AF+, so she did her own research and saw a few "Best Rowing Machines for Apple Fitness Plus 2021" blogs on Google, after reading one on imore.com she ordered the Mr Rudolf. This is where the LOL comes in, the one she order, while the write up on imore.com and a few other sites on Google list it under Apple Fitness Plus machines so it makes sense it would work. It doesn't, it works with iC+Training App, and from the tiny bit I've played with it looks like you'll only get heart rate to work with an apple watch when running AF+, and the speed and distance metric won't show up. She told me in her defense she read 4 different reviews online that said it was a good choice for a realistic water rower to use with AF+.

I Googled "Best Rowing Machines for Apple Fitness Plus 2021" and a crazy amount of what I found listed machines that worked with an iPhone with a proprietary app but didn't integrate with AF+. This is really a shame because why would a non tech savvy person read these blogs and not think they're getting something good. A lot of very misleading info out there for sure. The main site she pointed me to listed 6 models, I looked into them and only 1 actually works with AF+.

Disassembling and trying to rebox it to return it should be a load of fun.

 

[deadlyapp]

LOL, well she did go read on the Concept and it doesn't integrate with AF+, so she did her own research and saw a few "Best Rowing Machines for Apple Fitness Plus 2021" blogs on Google, after reading one on imore.com she ordered the Mr Rudolf. This is where the LOL comes in, the one she order, while the write up on imore.com and a few other sites on Google list it under Apple Fitness Plus machines so it makes sense it would work. It doesn't, it works with iC+Training App, and from the tiny bit I've played with it looks like you'll only get heart rate to work with an apple watch when running AF+, and the speed and distance metric won't show up. She told me in her defense she read 4 different reviews online that said it was a good choice for a realistic water rower to use with AF+.

I Googled "Best Rowing Machines for Apple Fitness Plus 2021" and a crazy amount of what I found listed machines that worked with an iPhone with a proprietary app but didn't integrate with AF+. This is really a shame because why would a non tech savvy person read these blogs and not think they're getting something good. A lot of very misleading info out there for sure. The main site she pointed me to listed 6 models, I looked into them and only 1 actually works with AF+.

Disassembling and trying to rebox it to return it should be a load of fun.

This is why my wife leaves techy decisions and research to me lol

 

[Scarpozzi]

I have spent many many hours on a Concept 2. I can't stress enough that it's a better rounded and proven machine than most others. It's not a fad machine and really is decent at working technique (pull too fast, you won't really spin the machine). The only thing it can't do is properly teach how important it is to slide forward more slowly. (Kills forward momentum in a real shell)